The Exchange
by Galloway
Summary: Callisto returns and wants Xena to help undo her past.
1. Fire and Green Grass

Author's Note: The Exchange was written late in Xena's second season and takes place some months after that, although it contradicts canon for season three and beyond. It references events up through "A Day in the Life", X:WP season 2, episode 15, and "Judgement Day", H:TLJ season 3, episode 15.

I: Fire and Green Grass 

There was fire everywhere. It began without her, and then was within her, and at the last, without her again. For the longest time, she was indistinguishable from the fire, and, most would say, the fire was inextinguishable. But all fire, deprived of fuel or of air, cools to embers.

Perhaps it never loses its danger.

In a steep valley ran a river of flame beneath the weed-grown remnants of a city never named. In the river stood a statue of struggle. In the statue beat two unbleeding hearts. Unbleeding, but not unfeeling.

Callisto, Vengeance Immortal of Cirra, was one. Velasca, God of Chaos, was the other.

The land above the valley was never much traveled. Since the bridge above had been cut, not at all, in fact. So there was no one to notice as the riverbed ceased its flow, as the red rock dimmed to black, and under heavy spring rains, crumbled to rich soil. Under normal circumstances, this would have taken years, maybe decades. But very little about this valley was normal.

How long did not matter to the bearers of the hearts, the figures poised in perfect balance. Or at least not to one. Chaos will wait. It is inevitable.

But vengeance is different. It requires a target, and this target was not immortal. Deep inside Callisto, that beating heart counted out the limited time she had. The ambrosia had shown her so many things inside herself that she'd had no time to explore before the betrayal, and this prison, poised in perfect balance with the raw unfocused rage of the God of Chaos. But Callisto had an advantage against that unfocused rage. She had discipline. Patience is a virtue.

With the rock and just a minimal use of power, she could keep the balance. And that left her mind free to explore.

Her mind had always been quick, even as a child in Cirra. It danced among the clouds, and the trees, and the sheep in the pasture, and the blades of grass beneath their hooves. She pestered her mother with questions, availed herself of her sister's wisdom. When their responses were insufficient, she devised her own solutions, fanciful tales about why the sky turned red from blue, the fields green into gold. And when fire consumed her life, burned away all fanciful things, her mind, even clouded with madness, raced to find answers to questions little girls should never be asking.

Within her statue, Callisto's mind raced still, so fast she wished to catch her breath had there been any. She could not calm her thoughts; they came in snatches of picture and fragments of sound. After a while she could focus them a little, force them into sequence.

The tall grass behind her home, green all around her, soft beneath her, the vast azure sky overhead paling to white about the warm sun. The fragrance of the earth. And if she cleared her head of all thoughts, the whisper, like soft voices, as the grass bent beneath a breeze.

The dusty, uneven road stretching before and behind as she skipped alongside the cart, heading to market. The lilting laugh of her sister, flirting with the drover. Her mother's voice calling her to catch up as she hopped on one foot, removing a pebble from her sandal and rubbing the sore spot on her sole.

The delicious aching in her fingers as she pulled strands on her neighbor Penthia's loom for dinars. The delicious smell of Penthia's rabbit stew Callisto pretended, unconvincingly, to hate.

The war cries of the soldiers who invaded her home. The orange light, like day in the night, of flame leaping from one rooftop to the next. The crashing of ceiling beams onto her trapped neighbors, cutting off the cries of pain and fear below. The dark woman on horseback rounding the corner twenty paces down from where she stood in the street, who never looked her way. The frantic screams of her mother, calling out Callisto's name. The wailing of her sister, weeping among the shrieks of pain.

The dripping dampness of the cave she used as shelter for months. The company of rats. Their squeals as she shooed them from her tiny stash of food with a branch she sharpened. The clack of the wood on the stone. The sting in her hands as she beat the branch against a pillar of rock over and over, until it split in her callused palms. The crack. The clack, as she found another branch, and began to practice with it, imagining the dark woman's face in the stone.

The smell of the dirt she crouched in, beneath heavy weeds, above some warlord's camp, watching the soldiers practice. Watching. Learning. Hating.

The weight of the sword she stole off a sleeping, ineffective guard. The shine of the metal in the moonlight. The muffled grunt, the surprise on his face, as she slipped the blade into the soft flesh at the base of his throat. The jingle of dinars in his leather purse as she ran back into the cover of night.

The taste of the sweat dripping down her cheeks as she swung the sword against the dead tree. Still that face there, before her, in the wood now.

Focus.

The face of the first soldier she killed who fought back, a straggler from one of countless village raids she witnessed.

The laughter the first time she took on two stragglers. Three. Four.

Five.

Years of watching. Learning. Killing. Bending a dozen different weapons to her will.

A stray thought slid into the rushing flow, of how the feelings that came with the first pictures were absent with the last. She did not know when that happened, but she could remember the first time she realized it: another town, another raid, herself sweeping in from the bush to take on an isolated group of three men spending their quality pillaging time raping a girl of maybe sixteen. She dispatched the three almost without effort, and was left facing the half-naked, sobbing girl. They locked eyes, something like thanks in the broken girl's. And Callisto thought killing the men had been a waste. They'd been distracted, and no challenge at all. She herself had been fifteen and a half, if she was still counting the seasons correctly.

The pictures kept flooding, of seaside hideouts, and dreams of a dark-haired woman on horseback, and killing a warlord to steal his army. Of facing her nemesis at last, once, twice, thrice. The pictures became surreal and distorted. Endless moments trapped in a chair.

And then it seemed to repeat. Trapped amidst the fires of Tartarus. Living in a cave with rats.

The dark-haired demon again, who she had followed so long... coming to her. Making a pact doomed to betrayal.

Outside, the lava was becoming soil. Seeds were falling. Plants were growing. The wind was whispering in soft voices.

Callisto tried to concentrate on the pictures, not the crush of sharp rock on her skin. There was something she was leaving out, something just beyond her grasp. She slowed the rush, drew it out. Did she really feel nothing as she stabbed the sleeping guard? When she met that girl's eyes? Bits and pieces. Nothing solid.

But when she danced atop a pivoting ladder, fire all around, the demon in front of her, her little angel hanging from a rope? Perhaps.

And when she stood in a marketplace full of uncaring people, and heard the demon, her kindred, confess? Oh yes.

Even as she lied to Gabrielle, so beautiful and warm in the firelight, so different from dark Xena, that she felt nothing, she felt it again. But could she say what that feeling was? No.

Outside, the voices of the wind grew louder.

Callisto withdrew from such thoughts. She turned herself away from the past. She cleared her head entirely; it was difficult against the cacophony of anger projected from her opponent inches before her.

And she heard it. At the opposite end from chaos, she found a symmetric projection of purpose, like the focused anger of a warrior in battle, the cynosure of a hunter's arrow.

Artemis. Floating in the wind.

Without words, Artemis spoke to Callisto. Offered an exchange. It took no thought at all to accept.

Callisto's mind danced. She spread out her senses beyond the lava in a way the undisciplined Velasca could not. Callisto saw the green grass, the gently bending trees. Above was a sliver of sky, the roil of clouds. A tattered rope bridge, swaying in the breeze. 

She slipped her mind among the leaves of the trees. She could feel them as if on her skin. She could smell their pungent odor. She rose higher, into the clouds. The water droplets hanging in the air, brushing against one another, little charges, the beginning of lightning bolts, dancing among them.

She felt the air thicken, the leaves stir more severely.

Then, like a knife blade, she felt a blast of sand, stirred up from the rocks, drive like hard rain against the statue she was within. Harder and harder it blew, wearing away the crust bit by bit.

Callisto drew her mind back within herself. She could feel the rock starting to weaken. Then, across from her, she felt Velasca sensing the shift, but too late. Before Velasca could react, Callisto was free.

The sensations she had experienced before, with only the barest thread of her mind, were nothing compared to the wave crashing over her as she left the lava prison. But she pushed that aside for now. With the rock weakened Velasca would work her own way free in moments.

"My turn," she called out to Artemis.

Callisto lifted her hand and with it her spirit back into the clouds. She tightened her fist and they swirled together heavily, sucked in from horizon to horizon. Drops against drops. Callisto stirred them into a roiling, building tower, and when she could wait no more, slammed their gathered energy down upon her foe. Then again. And again.

The rock, covered with soil, began to glow, and melt, and crack. It moved as Velasca shifted.

Now came the rain, in a flood, cooling, cracking, seeping inside, steaming and hissing. Working its way down into the almost dormant lava bed below.

Velasca tried to scream as the scalding water worked its way through, not from pain but from the knowledge of her helplessness.

At last, again, the lightning. In a fraction of a second the statue of Velasca, and her with it, exploded with the force of a volcano. Even buoyed by ambrosia, she could not withstand it.

Callisto turned her face to the sky and held out her arms to the rain. She let it wash away the dust of her prison. She breathed deeply of the wind, finding it sweet. After a few, treasured moments, she looked back to the earth, smoking still before her, slowly changing to mud.

"You were not my enemy, Velasca. For a while you were a decent foe," Callisto said. "Now you are nothing. No one stands between me and my Xena." She looked to the heavens again. "Is that sufficient?" she called. "Can I take up my quest again?"

The wind blew through the trees in response, making ripples in the mud that was the God of Chaos.

Callisto raised her arms again and added to the breeze as she spun into a whirlwind of smoke and steam and disappeared.

Such a display could hardly go unnoticed, even in territory as wild and empty as this was. After Callisto had lifted herself away, and Artemis followed into the clouds, a darker soul appeared from between the trees at the bottom of the canyon. With a gesture he pushed aside the troublesome rain as he stepped toward the site of conflict — his favorite pastime.

Ares crouched in the mud, steaming around his heavy boots. He ran his hand through it, squishing it delightedly through his fingers. With the slyest of smiles, he turned his face to the sky, as though his look could chase the breeze Callisto rode upon.


	2. Thunder and Moonlight

II: Thunder and Moonlight 

It was late, but still Xena was awake. Gabrielle had been asleep for some time. Xena enjoyed spending a little quiet time alone occasionally. She thought of taking a walk, but the day's trip had brought them far enough into the wilderness she didn't want to leave Gabrielle unprotected.

So instead she sat by the fire and listened to the night, while she cleaned Gabrielle's precious frying pan. With concentration she could pick out a dozen different creatures on their nocturnal hunts, from the squeaks of bats overhead to a rustling in the brush a ways off that was probably a raccoon. A log in the fire popped.

Xena paused in her work to watch Gabrielle's sleeping form, curled up towards the fire, blanket half over her but kicked off one leg. Her hair glowed ruddy in the firelight, bangs brushed down off her forehead, a single lock curling up about her chin before her mouth, lifting and falling with each breath. She looked so peaceful, so comfortable. Xena smiled: Gabrielle had fallen asleep with her stylus still in her fingers; her parchment was inches beyond, its edges just starting to re-roll.

A whisper of sound in the leaves overhead drew Xena's attention. The wind was picking up. Through the branches overhead she could see the stars now and again as the clouds drifted past. Xena's brow furrowed as she watched. The clouds moved very quickly. In the distance she heard thunder.

Xena felt a chill as the breeze, descending from the treetops now, invaded the camp. The fire flared a bit, sparks drifted upward and, caught in the air, were torn away. Gabrielle's parchment skittered a few inches. Xena stood, began moving to retrieve it. If a spark were to— and then one landed on a corner. Fed by the agitated air, the spark ignited the paper almost instantly. Xena leapt to grab it, and slapped away the flame.

She let out the breath she'd held as she examined the parchment. Nothing lost. Xena resisted the temptation to read what her companion had written; Gabrielle always held back until she was finished, and Xena couldn't steal from her that thrill Gabrielle always said she felt from the first performance. Rolling the parchment up gently, Xena crouched down and slipped it inside Gab's pack. Then she started to pull up the blanket that covered her against the quickening breeze, and, unable to resist, lowered her head to kiss Gabrielle's cheek ever so lightly. Though she couldn't tell, Xena thought a brief smile touched the young woman's lips.

At that moment, all Xena's senses came to life. She had the strongest feeling that she was not alone by Gabrielle's side. She spun about on the balls of her feet, but saw nothing. Far off, the thunder continued. Above, the clouds were racing. Then, among the trees across the camp, she thought, for a moment, she could see a pair of eyes watching, their color impossible to miss even at a distance, a shocking sky blue. Xena blinked. There was nothing.

The hair stood up on the back of Xena's neck and again, she felt someone was behind her, stronger this time. She turned back to face Gabrielle's prone form — and stopped. The blanket she had begun to pull up around her partner was completely tucked in. Gabrielle snuggled inside it, murmuring happily. Thunder, loud, and then an unmistakable voice, dangerously charming.

"Xena..." it called, from nowhere, and everywhere.

Xena sat bolt upright from her bedroll, sweating. The fire was but a pile of softly glowing embers. The trees above were awash with moonlight, and it dappled the camp. She immediately looked to where Gabrielle slept, and thought, for a brief moment, she saw a familiar figure there beside her companion. Not moving, just watching. Silver light on golden hair. But as Xena rolled silently to her hands and knees to approach, she saw nothing was there at all. Just a trick of her dream, Xena guessed, but still she crept to Gabrielle, just to be sure.

Gabrielle slept comfortably, tucked inside her sleeproll. Xena shook her head, and climbed to her feet. A thought struck her, and she turned back, checking. Gab's parchment was neatly rolled, just the end peaking from her pack. The thought progressed no further as Xena heard a rumble of distant thunder. Above, the sky was still clear.

Xena looked about and chose a likely tree. Choosing her footholds carefully in the dim light, she searched the horizon once she'd climbed high enough. Distant, to the north, was a lone thunderhead perched in the star-filled sky. Xena frowned. She knew the place.

* * *

Gabrielle awoke at first light, and as usual, Xena was already up. Gabrielle stretched her arms over her head, yawning. Xena had built the fire back up, and it made the camp toasty and comfortable.

"I had the nicest dreams, last night—" she began, but stopped. "Xena, what are you doing?" she asked.

The Warrior Princess stood by Argo, tightening down the straps on her saddlebags. She was already dressed.

"There's something I need to check out. I won't be long... a couple of hours, maybe."

Gabrielle started rolling up her bedroll. "Give me a couple of minutes to pack and I'll come with you."

Xena shook her head, turning back to her work. "No, Gabrielle, really, it's no big deal. Spend some time with your scrolls. I'll be back by noon... I'll catch lunch for us."

Gabrielle stood. "Xena, I thought we were past this."

Xena looked at Gabrielle. "Past what?"

"Past you excluding me from your life." She felt very hurt. "I thought you believed in me. I thought you trusted me."

Xena walked to her friend, taking Gabrielle gently by the shoulders. "I _do_ believe in you, Gabrielle. But this... could be too dangerous for you."

"And if it's too dangerous for _you_? Am I left waiting here forever?"

"Gabrielle, you know I can take care of myself."

Gabrielle lowered her eyes. "And I can't."

"Not against this you can't."

Gabrielle pulled away. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." She went back to rolling the bedroll.

The Warrior Princess sighed. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Then how _did_ you mean it exactly? Can't you at least tell me what's going on?"

"Look, Gabrielle... I've made too much of this already. It really is probably nothing." She looked to the sun climbing the sky. "I have to go."

"Go then," the bard said, not looking up.

Xena opened her mouth, then closed it again, and headed for Argo. She mounted up.

Gabrielle paused in her task, wanting to speak, but unable.

Xena wheeled her horse about, then paused, turning back to Gabrielle, who was still not looking back. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. I didn't have a good night. I hardly slept at all."

Gabrielle turned to her friend. "Can't you tell me what this is about?"

Xena looked away, then back. "Can you tell me what your dreams were about?"

It was Gabrielle's turn to open her mouth and say nothing. She blinked. Somehow, she realized, Xena knew exactly what she'd dreamt. Worse, Gabrielle realized, at the time the dreams had seemed so nice.

Xena met Gabrielle's eyes, and Xena's jaw clenched, her fears confirmed. She lifted Argo's reins, and started off through the forest, not sure of what she'd find, but trusting it wouldn't be good.


	3. Bridges

III: Bridges 

It was quiet as Xena rode beneath the arch and into the ruins. Rain had not yet washed away the scorch marks where Velasca's thunderbolts had struck out at Gabrielle — and herself and Callisto — despite the months and months that had passed. Little seemed to have changed at all here, since that day.

It was just exactly the way she kept picturing it in her mind when she thought about it. And she thought about it often, more often than she'd have imagined.

It was different than when she had let Callisto drown in the quicksand. The guilt of that had plagued Xena for months. At the time there was so much to hate her for... the horrible things she had done in Xena's name, the things she had done to Gabrielle especially. It had seemed justified. It _was_ justified, she insisted, despite all that it had led to. Despite all the dreams.

Yet, seeking Callisto's help against Velasca, all the while planning her demise, that was more like outright murder than simply not rescuing her had been. What made it worse still was that somehow, Gabrielle had found it in her heart to forgive the steel-hearted warlord, something Xena herself could not do, perhaps because she had not yet forgiven herself for contributing to Callisto's downfall in the first place. But what was worst, what left her with the nightmares, was what she was here to find out. In the quicksand, Callisto had died; as impermanent as it had turned out to be, Xena had had no lingering worries about vengeance. But here, in this place, Xena's betrayal had not been just of a woman, a warrior. Here, Xena had betrayed a god. Eventually, Callisto was bound to escape. If it was in her lifetime, the consequences could be far worse than what the act had saved Gabrielle — and herself — from in the first place.

Then, as she looked about the setting of so many of her bad dreams, Xena realized something _was_ different. Not in how things looked. It was the way things sounded. Before, low but steady, had been the rushing sound of liquid rock in the river of flame far below. That sound was missing now.

Dismounting, Xena tied Argo to one of the many crumbled pillars that littered the ruins. She headed for the precipice, and the remains of the rope bridge she herself had cut, dooming her enemies to a tomb of stone. Something had definitely changed here; someone had repaired the bridge.

She almost stopped as she approached, but curiosity drew Xena closer. The rope that had been strung across in repair was not ordinary, but multi-colored. It was not hemp, either, but smoother to the touch — almost like silk. As Xena ran her hand across the reattached hand railing, she puzzled over the colors. Three strands. The first a rich red, like a sunset. The second, light yellow, almost gold. She bent closer to discern the third. Dark brown, almost black. As she leaned her face close, a lock of her hair fell forward off her shoulder, into her vision, and Xena drew back in shock. This was someone's sick joke. The third rope was the color of her hair. And not one like that, but all three: hers, Gabrielle's... and Callisto's. She closed her eyes against the obscenity. Perhaps this was just nerves, or her conscience taking over her imagination.

She opened her eyes again. The rope was unchanged. Three colors, braided together.

Xena wanted to leave, but she couldn't. Not yet. She had to know.

Trying not to look at the bridge, Xena crouched down by the ledge, and looked over. Sure enough, the lava no longer flowed, but to her surprise the valley was not still barren but quite lush. Her eyes searched. She had seen, as she and Gabrielle had left here, a twisted monument to her victory: the two gods frozen in the still steaming rock. But from this angle it was not visible.

Xena scanned the sides of the canyon, looking for a way down. A path, maybe, or if nothing else, something in the brush that would provide handholds for climbing. There was something a ways off, but it would take maybe an hour to work her way to it, and then, given the gulch's sharp descent, at least two hours to safely descend. At least the same for the trip back up, plus riding time. She couldn't make Gabrielle wait that long. She really needed to apologize for how she had acted before.

No, there was no other way. As disconcerting as the repairs to the rope bridge might be, from even ten paces out from the ledge she could see what she was looking for. Standing, Xena gripped the two rope railings and stepped out onto the bridge.

There was a slight breeze, so Xena had to hold the rails tightly. The repaired side was so smooth beneath her palm, like a fine satin gown, such as she hadn't owned in years. Unbidden came the thought that in all her life, Callisto would never have worn one. Never have had the chance. Xena shook the thought away.

Down below, the earth was like a green carpet. Over the silken handrail, in the direction the lava had flowed, would be the statues. Her eyes found only green and lush, shifting and dancing like a pond's surface in the wind. Then there, farther up, what looked like scorch marks. As from the lick of lightning. Perhaps she was wrong. Maybe the lava had flowed in the other direction. She turned her back.

The wind felt cold to her back suddenly. That sensation again, that she was not alone. And then that sugar-sweet voice, almost in her ear.

"Xena..." it called, from far away, and very close.

She whirled about, gripping the new rail with both hands to steady her. It gave way as she clutched it, as though it were cut. Off balance, she pitched forward, and downward, into the valley far below.

Xena looked about as she fell, for something to grab. But she had come too far out onto the bridge, and the canyon's walls were too steep, too distant. Looking up, really down, she prayed the vegetation was thick enough to cushion her, that she could catch a branch or tree, but beneath her were only bushes and grass. And beneath that, hard volcanic stone. No, she knew, this careless act was her death.

Down.

Down.

The earth coming fast. Closer.

She struck no earth, but passed completely through. All was black.

And then she hit. It was not rock, but dirt. She felt only like she'd fallen from a small tree. Then the heat hit her in waves.

Xena looked about her. She lay on the ground in the midst of horrific flames. Loud, brilliant flames. For a moment she felt it was Tartarus, as before when Callisto had lured her there. As her eyes adjusted she could see people running to escape the fires. As her ears adjusted she could hear them wailing.

But there were no buildings in Tartarus, like the one burning before her. Behind her. All about her. She was lying in the street, in the middle of a town aflame. The darkness was merely night. But not just any night.

The figures running about were armored, Xena could hear the clashing of swords, the screams of slaughter. Innocents, slaughtered. And there, not ten feet from her, stood a gangly young girl, in soot stained clothes, frozen with the horror before her. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She was speaking one word, over and over. "Why?" she cried.

And then, as if to punctuate this nightmare, from around the corner, not twenty paces away, came a warhorse, and astride it, herself.

She knew where this was. She knew when this was. The girl turned molten brown eyes towards Xena with her pitiful cry, but Xena couldn't see her anymore, for seeing herself.

"You didn't even notice me, did you?" came a clear voice from behind her.

On instinct, Xena rolled to her feet, sword out. Callisto walked towards her slowly, unarmed.

"It was like you couldn't see me at all," Callisto said, looking from her younger self to Xena's and back.

Xena said nothing, tightening her grip on her sword.

Callisto looked at her, eyes so blue and stark they pierced her soul. "You didn't actually _think_ the lava would hold me forever, did you?" she asked, her tone sarcastic. "And how could you treat me like that, after saving your life _and_ your sweet Gabrielle's? I think you owe me for that."

Xena half-shook her head, eyes never leaving her enemy. "I don't owe you anything. You were after the ambrosia, and you got what you wanted."

Callisto's face suddenly darkened. "I've _never_ gotten what I want, Xena. You know that." The look was gone as fast as it came. She seemed almost cheery, coming closer. "Even now, you greet me like this?" she gestured at the sword. "It's a dangerous reflex against a god, my love."

Callisto grabbed the blade of the sword and a shock ran up it. Xena let go quickly. Callisto took the grip in her hand, tested the sword's balance, examining it closely. She seemed fascinated by it, but in no hurry to use it on Xena.

Xena massaged her tingling hand. "What do you want, Callisto?"

Callisto's attention snapped back to her. "Now really, Xena, after all this time, you don't know yet?"

Xena's jaw tightened. "If you're going to torture and kill me, why don't you just get started?"

Callisto cocked her head, considering. "As delicious as that image is, dear... I'm afraid you still don't understand."

"Then what do you want?"

Callisto was beside her in an instant, her blue eyes flashing. She grabbed Xena's arm, the Warrior Princess flinched in pain, trying to shake away. Callisto let go her arm to grab Xena's chin instead, and forcibly turned her head to look at their ghosts, so near. "By the gods, Xena, I want you to _notice me_!"

Xena's tried to look at the young girl, but it was so difficult. A blackness leapt from within her to squeeze her heart. "I see you, Callisto. I'm _so_ sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"_No_, Xena," Callisto almost screamed, in the core of a rage. "Not you. I don't care if _you_ see me." With Xena's own sword she pointed at the other one, the Xena on horseback. "I want _you_ to notice me. I want you to see me, and ride up to me. Pick me up, carry me away. I want you to make a world for me, a home for me, like you have for Gabrielle."

Against every fiber of her being, every ingrained habit, Xena felt tears slipping down her cheeks. "I can't do that, Callisto," she struggled to say. "I can't change the past."

Callisto let go of her, and stepped in front of her. "Ah, but you forget," she tapped a finger to Xena's forehead. "I am a god, Xena." She traced the finger down Xena's cheek, down her throat, the lightest touch, to her bosom. "I can see into your heart. I know that you have changed the past. I know that you brooked a deal with the Fates, and changed your history. I know that in that life, my mother and sister were still alive. I was still alive. Not dead to everything like I was after this moment," she gestured to the Cirra around them, the Cirra of Xena's nightmares.

Xena drew back, horrified. "You can't... you can't make that past happen again!"

Callisto rolled her eyes. "Ah yes, it would stain your little Gabrielle. I know that too, Xena. But that's not what I'm after." She held out her hands, one empty, one armed. "My thought is this: if they would change the past for you, they can do it for me. They can give me back my life, Xena. They can give me back my soul."

She looked off, at the sobbing young girl. "That's all I've ever wanted."

Xena watched Callisto silently. "Why would they listen to me?" she asked after a moment.

Callisto turned back to her. "That's not what you really want to know, is it? You want to know why you should help me, don't you?"

Xena pursed her lips. "Because you'll kill me if I don't, I suppose."

"Now that would hardly be a challenge, would it, Xena?" Callisto almost laughed. "After all," she gestured upwards, and suddenly Cirra was gone, leaving them instead at the bottom of the canyon where the lava had flowed. Above them was the broken rope bridge. "I could have already done that, couldn't I?" Callisto finished.

Xena looked around. Now down here at the bottom, she could clearly see the scorched brush and earth she had noticed from above. Where the statue had been, there was only a pile of smashed rocks. No Callisto. No Velasca. Xena felt kicked. "Gabrielle..." she whispered.

Callisto followed Xena's gaze. "Oh, don't worry about her, Xena. Your little girl need never worry about Velasca again. She proved an interesting challenge... but there was a little stunt she pulled at a temple nearby that—" she smiled a wicked smile, "—crossed the wrong people. Now," she continued, "back to our dilemma."

The warrior queen thrust Xena's sword into the hard stone ground, raising sparks, but fixing it firmly. It vibrated back and forth from the blow. She walked to the broken lava, kicking away stones, including some larger than Hercules could easily lift that flew off as if weightless. "No, if I wanted to kill you, that would hardly be an effort. Instead," she looked back at Xena, "I want to offer you an exchange."

Xena's eyes narrowed. "What kind of 'exchange'?"

"Well, if you help me with the Fates," she walked around Xena as she talked, "you're rid of me. Forever. I'll be too busy living a happy life to have bothered with you, my love." She was behind Xena now. "Unless you just can't resist, of course." She snaked her head over Xena's shoulder, kissing her on the cheek. Xena jerked away; Callisto laughed.

Xena looked straight ahead as Callisto continued around her. "And if I don't help you?" she asked.

Callisto put her elbow in her palm and her fingers at her chin, one placed beside her cheek. "You know," she cocked her head, "being a god gives one all sorts of interesting abilities. It's not just death that I can control..." she looked down at the shattered rocks about her. "It's also life."

An instant of vertigo, and suddenly they stood before a little house, in what Xena instantly knew were the outskirts of Potedaia. "Do you recognize it?" Callisto asked.

Xena looked at the cottage. "It's Gabrielle's house... the one she was to live in with—" and from out of the front door stepped, impossibly, Perdicus. He noticed Xena, and raised a hand to wave, then saw Callisto, and looked instantly fearful. Callisto held up a hand and he froze, like time itself stopped. Xena felt not just bewildered but suddenly ill.

"How?" was all the sound she could produce.

Callisto shrugged. "Hades owed me a favor or two. I sent him enough business, after all." She smiled wickedly. "So did you, of course. Maybe you can call one in someday. Oh, but then you've cheated him a few times, haven't you? Maybe you shouldn't ask," she laughed.

Xena grit her teeth. "Get to the point, Callisto."

The sardonic face hardened. "The _point_ is, Xena, if you don't help me," she gestured back at Perdicus. "I'll give him back his life."

Xena tried very hard to keep her face empty.

"Oh, don't fight it, Xena," Callisto said, not fooled. "Even if I wasn't a god I could read your thoughts right now. For once, you were _glad_ for me, I know. You don't like to show it, you don't even like to feel it. But when I took this lummox away from Gabrielle," she cocked her head at the frozen man, "deep down you were _happy_ I did."

"That's a _lie_!" Xena growled, stepping towards the warrior.

Callisto turned an angry gaze towards her and the Warrior Princess stumbled backwards from its physical blow. "No, it's not, either. It was painful that I hurt Gabrielle by killing him, but by taking him away, I left her to you. It still tears you apart, doesn't it, Xena, that she chose him over you?"

She stepped closer as Xena righted herself. "How much worse would it feel then, if I brought him back, and she chose him _again_?"

Xena could barely contain the flood of her feelings. She wanted to hit something so badly it hurt.

The goddess raised her hands. "So there it is then, Xena. The exchange. You lose me — or you lose her."

She stepped closer still to Xena, her face serious. "I can't think of an easier choice, can you? I am war; she is love. I am death; she is life. Isn't this what you've always wanted, Xena, ever since Hercules gave you that second chance?"

Xena stared into those pale blue eyes, and felt like jelly inside. Callisto's body emanated such power the air throbbed with it. Xena felt it on her skin, in her lungs; she felt drunk with it. Callisto was wild and beautiful, maddening, intoxicating. Xena felt again like she had all those years, sword in hand, cutting down armies and raping villages.

And then she realized this was Callisto's doing, and why. This was part of the choice. Help Callisto, and live in peace; refuse, fight her, and feel this again, this rush. Somehow the choice was harder than she'd expected. The seconds stretched out.

"I'll help you," Xena said.

Callisto smiled a small smile, perfectly lined lips around dazzlingly white teeth. She turned away and the spell was broken. Xena almost had to catch her breath. "Oh," Callisto turned back. "Here..." Waving her fingers, the sword materialized back in Xena's hand.

They were suddenly at the top of the canyon, amongst the ruins. Shaking her head, Xena headed towards Argo.

Callisto watched Xena mount up, thinking for a minute. "Hmm..." she said. "You know, I need one of those." She waved her hand again, and from out of the woods nearby bolted a black mare, sleek, but nothing near what Xena would call ordinary. From its nostrils spouted fire, and it had hooves of flame. Xena looked wide-eyed at the goddess. Callisto seemed delighted with herself. "Perfect!" she clapped her hands.

"What's _that_?" Xena asked, incredulous, having to still the suddenly nervous Argo.

"Oh," Callisto giggled, "you could call her... a Nightmare!" She vaulted into the saddle of the restlessly prancing horse. She patted its neck, then turned to Xena. "Race you..." she laughed, and started off in a cloud of smoke.

Xena shook her head. With a last glance behind her, at a rope bridge that was miraculously whole again, she twitched her mare into a full gallop, hoping somehow to reach Gabrielle before her newfound partner did.

Distracted by the smoke-filled air far before her and the multi-colored bridge far behind, Xena never noticed her old master Ares watching, fascinated, amongst the crumpled buildings nearby. But then, he hadn't wanted her to.


	4. The Catch

IV: The Catch 

The black horse and its rider charged through the forest like a streak of lightning. The accompanying thunder was well behind, and losing ground. Callisto was smart, Artemis thought, watching the two in the font in her sanctuary; the sound of the Warrior Queen's supernatural beast was only that of the rushing wind to the animals Artemis held dear. The flaming hooves singed not a single leaf underfoot.

Perhaps she wouldn't make as dangerous a force in Olympus as Artemis had feared, and it was certainly safer braving her antics than Velasca's. And unlike the exiled Amazon, Callisto's earliest devotion had been to her own honor, in the young girl's many solitary hunting trips and moon-filled dreams. When Velasca had ever thought of her, it was in a hypocrisy of worship, more self-involved prayers than well intentioned sacrifices. No, if it weren't for the tragedies that had befallen her, Callisto might have been one of her favorites.

Almost in longing, Artemis reached her fingers to the surface of the still water, but dared not touch.

"Checking in on my protégées?" came a strong voice from behind her.

She didn't need to look. "Neither one of them is yours anymore, Ares."

Her half-brother stepped up close and peered over her shoulder at the wood-carved basin. "Yes, and it's a pity." He shook his head, then began to walk around the chamber, built with the appearance of a copse in the forest, its roof the entwined branches of trees many lifetimes old. "But you and Callisto have gotten sort of chummy, haven't you?"

With a last look at the stoup, Artemis turned towards her workbench. She resumed the detailing she'd been tasking with earlier on some arrow shafts. She would not meet his eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh come off it, little sister. Callisto escapes from her prison, destroys _your_ enemy..."

"Really, Ares," she dismissed. "They had been fighting!"

The leather-clad god stepped up to the table, lifted an arrow from its surface. "It's a crime to kill a god, you know." He ran his fingers along the shaft, across the scene she had carved there, the bare-toothed roar of a great bear warning off its enemies. "Nice workmanship!"

"I did nothing of the sort," Artemis told him. "Velasca was barely a god anyway." She could feel the redness to her cheeks.

"Yes, and I'm sure Zeus will look at it like that." He set down the arrow and, palms to the table, leaned towards her. "Of course, he doesn't have to learn of your involvement..."

She set her tools down. "And what are you suggesting, Ares?"

"Well, you see, if Callisto gets the Fates to change the past, it seems that I'll be out one warlord." He gestured towards the font. "And don't tell me you haven't been watching."

She said nothing, merely pursed her lips. 

"It's only fair that since you're losing me one, you should give me one back."

Artemis felt trapped in the sparkle of his eyes. "Velasca."

He got the slyest of grins. "I always knew you were quick, Sis."


	5. Reunion

V: Reunion 

The sun was well past its apex, and Xena still hadn't returned. Gabrielle had kept busy all morning: cooking some salted fish they'd had left for breakfast, scrubbing the plates and utensils — _all_ the plates and utensils — rewriting some scrolls, gathering firewood, all but sweeping the campsite; there just wasn't enough work to keep her mind occupied.

Why had she let Xena leave when they were both so angry?

She took a deep breath, trying to slow her pulse. Closing her eyes, she tried to visualize the target before her, then swung the staff back up to a neutral position in her already sore hands. She flexed her fingers, and started back into her rhythm, roll left, roll right, slash left and up, roll back... the twitch of her head to throw off the sweat dripping into her eyes. A cool breeze on her back enlivened her, and Gabrielle swung and dodged more quickly, her pulse strong, breathing even, swing behind left, back and roll, slash up and right—

—and hearing the hoof-beats too late behind found the staff plucked right from her hands as the rider pounded by. Gabrielle smiled... then drew back in surprise as she realized the horse was black, not tawny, and the figure swinging the staff skillfully around herself in a blur of motion was blonde, not raven. Using only her legs she brought the massive beast she rode around so they faced Gabrielle.

The warrior goddess turned her shining blue eyes towards the bard. She stopped the staff fluidly and offered one end to Gabrielle. "Thanks, but I don't need one right now."

"Callisto!" Gabrielle exclaimed in shock.

Callisto smiled a dazzling and wicked smile. "Hello, Angel," she said. "Miss me?"

Gabrielle found herself at a loss for words, but was saved by the sound of heavily pounding hooves. Xena barreled out of the brush on Argo, both breathing hard. Xena reined up.

"Xena?" Gabrielle turned a hopeful and questioning look on her partner.

Xena looked from Callisto to Gabrielle and back, trying to ascertain what she'd missed. "I'll explain later," she said. She dismounted.

"You'll explain now," Gabrielle said, ill at ease.

The Warrior Princess tried to catch her breath. Her tone was impatient. "Gabrielle..." she began.

Callisto, watching the two, still smiling, cut in. "Oh really, Xena, can't you see she's worried?" She turned to Gabrielle. "Don't fret, Angel, you're safe. There's no more Velasca to worry about. For that matter," she shrugged disarmingly, "at the moment, there's no me, either. To worry about, that is."

Gabrielle just looked at her, not sure of what to think. Xena frowned at Callisto.

Callisto planted the staff's end and flicked the other so it fell into Gabrielle's hands, then swung down from her horse. She turned towards the others, gestured at them with her hands. "Go on, kiss and make up."

Xena took a deep breath, then took Argo's reins and led the mare towards the bard. "Gabrielle, I'll explain everything, I promise." She offered Gabrielle the reins. "For the moment, could you please take her to that little stream we saw? I'll be right there."

Gabrielle frowned, but nodded slowly. With a last look towards Callisto, she led Argo away.

Xena waited until she felt Gabrielle was out of earshot, then turned to Callisto. "What did you tell her?"

Callisto raised her eyebrows. "Not a thing! I just got here."

"On that beast?" she nodded her head towards the night-mare, "You were at least a half-hour ahead of me."

"I took the scenic route."

Xena narrowed her eyes. "Listen, not a _word_ about—"

"I wouldn't think of it," Callisto interrupted. She smiled. "It's part of the bargain. I promise."

Xena raised a skeptical eyebrow.

The goddess shrugged. "You'll have to trust me."

"That'll be a cold day in Tartarus."

Callisto smiled with her eyes. "Oh there've been those." She lifted her lips in a broad grin. "All in a good day's torture."

Xena pursed her lips. "Stay here," she turned to follow Gabrielle.

The smile vanished. "_Don't_ order me."

"Please," Xena sighed, pausing.

It came back. "Pretty please," Callisto said.

* * *

Argo drank deeply from the brook as Gabrielle brushed her flank in long strokes. The bard's head was buzzing. The very air seemed charged. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd brought Callisto here with her dreams. But that was ridiculous, the dreams were obviously Callisto's doing in the first place; Xena had dreamed of her too.

So why wasn't it fear that Gabrielle was feeling, instead of this secret thrill?

In her dreams, she had been to places she had been before, yet never seen. Remembered moments she had never lived, met people she knew, yet had never known. And all the while with Callisto by her side. Not this Callisto, the capricious and volatile one, but some other, who smiled genuine smiles, with eyes of brown that windowed a happy soul, not these of blue that showed only cold flame behind.

Xena stepped down to the bank, interrupting her thoughts. Gabrielle watched her as the Warrior Princess crouched down to drink a palm-full of water.

"Did you have to bring her here?" the bard asked.

"I didn't bring her anywhere," Xena answered, not looking at her. "She was here last night, remember?"

Could Xena read her thoughts? The question behind her question? Gabrielle resumed her brushing. "When did she get out?"

"I don't know. From the looks of what I saw, it was probably recent." Xena bent lower and splashed the cool water on her face. "I'm guessing she had help, too."

"From who?"

"I don't know that either, yet."

Gabrielle hesitated a moment. She looked over her shoulder. "And Velasca?"

"She claims to have destroyed Velasca," Xena met her eyes.

"Do you believe her?"

Xena shrugged. "There aren't very many who could fight Callisto as a mortal. As a god... well, it wouldn't surprise me."

She patted Argo's flank and stowed the brush in her saddlebag. "And now _we_ have to deal with her."

Xena stood. "It's not like that, Gabrielle."

The bard looked at her.

"She wants my help."

"Your help??" Gabrielle furrowed her brow.

Xena turned away. She crossed her arms, walking along the bank. Gabrielle could swear she was fidgeting. The bard let it come naturally, not forcing. "Gabrielle," Xena said at last, "do you remember when we fought off the mercenaries outside the temple of the Fates?"

"Yes, I remember. You were there to honor Lyceus, like you do every year."

"I—" She had to clear her throat. "I've never told you all of what happened there."

* * *

Alone in the campsite, Callisto stood stock still and breathed the pungent traces of smoke from the dying fire. She tried to concentrate, let her senses soar as she'd done before, but her horse was prancing restlessly back and forth, moving in circles, snorting flame.

"Settle down, girl," Callisto soothed the mare. "Running about in circles like that... what, are you going to sail off in a whirlwind as well?"

The horse tossed her head. Callisto stepped to her, taking the reins gently, patting her nose. "Why that's it! That's what I'll call you... Whirlwind."

Callisto looked off in the direction the others had gone. "Now listen," she told the mare, "You really must calm down. The little one, you see, she's a tad nervous around horses." She cracked a broad smile. "And _I'd_ almost be frightened of you."

She stroked Whirlwind's flank and murmured softly to her until she calmed down, then Callisto went back to the dead fire and sat down on a log beside it. She closed her eyes.

Soon, Callisto thought, very soon now.

Penthia, what quilts have you woven in all this time? Was there one for my sister's wedding? Did she marry that drover, perhaps, what was his name? Wilhem? Did you sew her gown? Did I get to weave some of the lace?

How many hours had she spent amongst the tall grass behind her home, waiting for her mother to call her back to her chores? How many gentle scoldings had she gotten for sneaking out on moonlit hikes beyond the village? Had she convinced her mother to let her travel all the way to Athens, as she'd once dreamed in that field, to tell her many stories at the Academy? Or had she spent her years as a wild game hunter, as she'd also imagined she might?

Callisto thought of that day in Tartarus, when Xena had first made her face all those souls she had loosed, made her see the horror of her own crimes. The face of her own mother, eternally young, so sad at how she had turned out.

Mama, will I have made you proud this time?

* * *

Gabrielle returned to the camp alone; Xena was still watering Argo. Callisto's horse seemed calmer now. The goddess herself sat, eyes closed, by the fire's embers. Gabrielle cautiously approached, and sat beside her.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Angel..." Callisto smiled, opening her eyes.

"It's Gabrielle," the bard said firmly.

Callisto rolled her head, her tone dismissive, "Angel... Gabrielle..." Her eyes widened as a thought came to her, smiling, "Gabri-angel. Ooh, I like that. Gabriangel..."

Gabrielle shook her head, snorting, and started to get up.

"I was thinking about what it will be like to have a mother again," Callisto said. Gabrielle stopped, looked back at her. "What it will be like to have a sister again." Her eyes lingered on Gabrielle, her expression seemed a little more serious to the younger woman.

Gabrielle sat back down. "It will be like you haven't seen them in years, you know. Xena told me what it was like for her, with Lyceus."

Callisto shrugged. "Won't matter." She hugged her arms to herself, her head back. "I can just imagine that feeling creeping over me, knowing they've been there."

Gabrielle watched her. She opened her mouth, but hesitated before speaking. "Callisto... is part of this... to give you a new start?"

Callisto rolled her head to look into Gabrielle's eyes. Her mouth twisted into her wicked half-smile. "Haven't we already played this game, Gabriangel?"

Gabrielle looked away. How could she have dreamed it would be different?

"So you want to know if I'm sorry for all the things I've done in my miserable life?" Callisto asked, surprising her.

Gabrielle looked at her. She nodded.

Callisto closed her eyes again, hands on the log, rocking slightly back and forth. "What's the point in thinking about it? By this time tomorrow they won't have happened."

"Is it that easy for you? Can you just wish that guilt away?"

"I suffered for _months_ in Tartarus for what I've done! And that was the good part." Callisto snapped. "I was trapped in that lava statue, unable to move, unable to breathe, for even longer! Is it so _much_ to want that gone?"

Gabrielle just looked at her. "Months, huh? How unfortunate."

The blue eyes swiveled to face her, bore into her causing physical pain. Her voice was ice. "And how long do you think Xena will suffer there, Gabrielle? Having killed a _hundred times_ what I did? Or did you think that because she's changed her spots, she can just waltz into the Elyssian Fields upon her demise now?"

The younger woman could say nothing.

"When this is finished," Callisto turned her gaze to the campfire, "all my crimes will be undone. That's more valuable than making me suffer, don't you think?"

"I guess it is..." Gabrielle said honestly. 

"Gabriangel." Callisto cocked her head. "You _are_ like an angel, you know." She exhaled. "You even forgave me. But then, I wasn't around at the time," she smiled. "Still, it's very sentimental of you."

"You didn't like that in Xena."

"In Xena it's an hypocrisy," Callisto snapped. The anger vanished as quickly as it surfaced. "But in you... you've always been like that." She looked to the trees, where Xena was just now emerging. "It must be comforting for someone like her, being around you. For someone with a dark past."

Callisto stood as Gabrielle thought on that. "Is it time to go yet?" Callisto asked.

Xena shook her head as she led her horse into camp. "It's a long trip, and Argo is still winded. Let's have something to eat, shall we? Gabrielle, get that fire going again. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Callisto threw up her hands as Gabrielle began to comply and Xena turned back towards the woods. "Oh, _please_. You'll be at it for hours."

Xena raised an eyebrow.

"Let's get this over with," Callisto said, and waved her fingers at the fire. It was suddenly a healthy blaze. Above it was a succulent looking, and delicious smelling, spitted boar. She winked at Gabrielle. "Who's hungry?"


	6. A Trip to the Fates

VI: A Trip to the Fates 

Callisto was impatient to leave right after they ate, but Xena insisted upon saving all the meat that was left from the meal. The goddess paced while Xena and Gabrielle cut and packaged.

"Can't you hurry with that?"

"You should have whipped up a chicken instead," Xena said, sharing a smile with Gabrielle.

Callisto hissed at her, and kept pacing.

"You know, you could help," Gabrielle said.

"I cooked," Callisto responded, the barest trace of a smile in her eyes.

Xena stood with one of the two hefty bundles and headed for Argo. Gabrielle brought another package over to the warrior goddess. "Do you like leftovers?" the bard asked.

"Like them? I lived on them," Callisto replied, a thread of sarcasm in her voice. She took the bundle to Whirlwind, then paused, turning back, and gestured Gabrielle over. "Tie it this way," she said, re-wrapping the string skillfully so that the younger woman could see. With the hide refolded just slightly, the seal was much more complete. "It holds in the juices better." Callisto put the pack in her saddlebags, then turned back to see Gabrielle looking at her oddly. "What?" she asked.

Xena measured the sun's height in the sky. "Let's get going. It's a few hours trip from here."

Gabrielle turned to look at her partner. "Oh I'm too stuffed. I don't think I can walk a 'few hours'."

"No need to walk," Callisto said, smiling slyly, and put her arm around Gabrielle's waist, hoisting her up into Whirlwind's saddle before the bard could protest, then vaulted in herself to sit before her. "Are we all packed?" she asked.

"Uhm, yes?" Gabrielle answered, confused and shocked.

Callisto looked over her shoulder. "Hang on, Gabriangel..." she said with a grin. "_Yah_!" she snapped the reins, and Whirlwind took off on her flaming hooves, leaving Xena scrambling into her own saddle and trying to follow.

Gabrielle had to throw both arms around the goddess' slim waist to keep from flying off the horse backwards. She pressed her cheek to Callisto's leather shoulder-pad, her eyes tightly closed.

"Relax, lover," Callisto smiled above the whipping wind, "you'll enjoy it more."

Gabrielle took a deep breath, and slowly eased up her grip, her hands sliding back across Callisto's stomach to just hold her waist. Her palms tingled where they touched the warrior queen's smooth skin. She slowly eased her calves up where they dug into the horse's flank.

There was an energy about both of them. Gabrielle couldn't help but bounce a little with each stride the horse took, but Callisto seemed one with the animal, in perfect synchronous rhythm. The sensations were different where her thighs touched animal and woman, but there was something the same about them that was sensual and intoxicating.

Gabrielle opened her eyes to watch the forest rush madly by. The beast turned and twisted through and around the trees so frightfully close that she clenched them tightly shut again. And then she realized something else amiss: but for the rushing of the air, there was barely a sound to be heard. The horse's hooves were almost silent upon the forest floor.

She dared one eye open again, then the other, then eased her cheek off the cool leather of Callisto's armor. She had to brush Callisto's long hair aside where it whipped at her, back across the curve of her neck. Gabrielle glanced at her face. The warrior's look was one of pure, childlike joy.

"What's her name?" the bard called over the wind.

The goddess turned her blue eyes to Gabrielle's own. "I call her Whirlwind!"

"Why is that?"

Callisto offered a crafty smile. "You'll see!" she called, and gripped the reins.

Gabrielle felt her stomach plummet and thought the green blur of forest canopy seemed strangely close. And then, miraculously, it was beneath her.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!" she called frantically.

Callisto laid her head back on Gabrielle's shoulder and laughed delightedly. The bard threw her arms back around the warrior's waist tightly.

"It's all right, you won't fall..." Callisto said. She clenched her legs gently and Whirlwind began to circle back... and around... and Gabrielle realized Callisto was slowly spiraling the beast higher and higher.

"Ohohohohohoh!"

Callisto gestured with her head as she straightened their path out. "Look... there's Xena... go on, look..."

Gabrielle shook her head vigorously, eyes shut tight.

Callisto realized that the younger woman was terribly frightened. She let go of the reins, and pried Gabrielle's hands free of her waist, then held them gently.

The bard relaxed a bit. She leaned back from Callisto just a tad — and somehow found herself leaning back _into_ Callisto. The warrior's hands left her own and slid forward around her own waist. Gabrielle's eyes snapped open. Callisto, sure enough, was on the saddle behind her now.

"I've got you, Gabrielle," Callisto soothed, "you won't fall." The voice she had always thought of as frightening was instead comforting to her right now. She really did believe Callisto's words. And with that assurance, she began to enjoy herself.

The ground was far below, but the soft hold of Callisto's strong hands was enough that she felt exhilarated at the sight of it. A memory flashed to her and away, of being suspended high in Callisto's hideout while Xena fought the warlord upon a twisting ladder below her. So long ago that felt. Stretched out far ahead of them was the most beautiful sunset Gabrielle had ever seen.

Among the trees, in and out of cover, Xena rode Argo at a hard gallop. Gabrielle turned her head. "Can we go lower?"

"Of course," Callisto smiled, and Gabrielle could feel her legs work Whirlwind's flanks again. The horse began to descend gently, not enough to induce a sense of falling, but more giving Gabrielle the sensation of a descending hawk, intent on its prey. They slowed as well, and Xena was ahead of them now. As the trio neared treetop level, Whirlwind sped up, and Gabrielle knew what Callisto was doing. Before she could call out a warning, Callisto let out a yell, "_Yah_!" and drove her mare past Xena and Argo so that Whirlwind's hooves passed an arm's length from Xena's head. Xena ducked on instinct, then turned a dark look at the goddess as Callisto laughed.

"Callisto..." Gabrielle scolded, but tried to hold back a smile.

"Oh, you're no fun," Callisto pouted, bringing Whirlwind back up towards the sky.

The bard looked back behind them. "Xena is having to ride Argo pretty hard, Callisto. Can we slow down?"

"Not and get there before nightfall," she answered. "But there are easier ways to do this." Callisto waved her fingers in the Warrior Princess' direction. As Gabrielle watched, the ground seemed to slide beneath Argo's hooves far faster than her strides could account for, almost as if a great breeze were pushing her along. Rods turned into furlongs turned into leagues.

Callisto spoke conspiratorially into Gabrielle's ear. "Want to see what those clouds are made of?"

"Oh..." Gabrielle hesitated, "no, I don't think so."

"Come on," the warrior goddess encouraged. "Could be your last chance..." she smiled.

With a look over her shoulder at a face she'd never thought she'd come to stand, much less possibly like, Gabrielle decided to indulge herself. "All right," she answered.

Callisto's hands slid off Gabrielle's waist and over her knees to grab the reins. With a flick of leather, Whirlwind pounded up some invisible hill towards the sky and Gabrielle, pressed back full against the most dangerous animal she had ever known, felt more than a guilty pleasure.

* * *

Xena had already reared up in the growing dark when the hooves of fire touched down before the domed temple of the Fates. Gabrielle accepted Callisto's helping hand down from the tall beast, and Xena was beside her almost before the goddess had wheeled away to give a breath's distance before she fluidly dismounted herself.

"Gabrielle, are you all right?" Xena asked her, both hands gripping the bard's as she drew her aside.

"I'm fine," Gabrielle replied, turning her head to look at the warrior queen. "She's in a good mood."

Xena was on the verge of furious. "Gabrielle, what are you thinking? Even if this works," she tossed her head towards the temple, "_Don't_ trust her. She's too unpredictable."

"It won't work, Xena..." Callisto called over from where she was adjusting Whirlwind's bridle. "She's starting to like me."

"In your dreams, Callisto," Xena answered.

"No, in reality," the goddess said, unruffled. "Are we ready to go in?" she asked.

Xena looked at the temple. So many things filled her mind, memories that never happened; the bright face of a loving brother she had lost twice now; the darkened face of the woman beside her, who she loved more than life, twisted by pain and hardship almost beyond recognition, and for whom she had given up that more peaceful life.

"Xena?" Gabrielle asked, beside her.

"I'm not sure I should do this," Xena said.

Gabrielle frowned. "Do you begrudge her a happy life so much?"

Xena shook her head, looked into her partner's eyes with pain in her own. "No, I'm just not sure of what will happen to _us_ after this."

The young woman, with a wisdom far beyond her years, lifted her hand to Xena's cheek. "If we go in together, we'll come out together."

Xena nodded slowly, then looked over at Callisto, who was looking back and forth between the two of them, her expression unreadable.

"Let's get this over with," Xena said.

* * *

"By this flame I call on the three fates," Xena intoned, lighting the candles one by one. "The maiden... the mother... and the crone."

Callisto stood almost by her elbow, nearly hidden by the rising smoke of the candles just put out all around. The temple priests, closing up for the night, almost hadn't let them in. Gabrielle had done some quick convincing before Callisto started resorting to thunderbolts.

"I ask you to grant the wish of Callisto of Cirra," she continued, "to repay your debt to me."

Moments passed. The candles dripped their wax. Callisto's eyes nervously flicked among the temple statues.

Gabrielle stepped forward beside the others. "I don't think it's working," she said softly.

"It will _work_!" Callisto fairly bellowed. "The Fates will listen to her."

Silence. Only the sounds of their own breath, Callisto's becoming ragged. The shadows danced in the candlelight.

"It has to work..." Callisto said softly.

Behind them, the priest who stood by the entrance shuffled on his feet. Then, as Xena could feel the energy radiating off Callisto's skin charge the room with her pent-up anger, the twitching shadows coalesced before them, and three figures stood there, sharing a string between them. One feeding from a spool, one measuring, and one with shears to the end. 

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The three fates.

They spoke in a chain, each continuing the others' thoughts. "Xena—"

"—Warrior Princess,"

"You champion—"

"—Callisto Vengeance?" 

Xena looked at the goddess beside her. Callisto's face was lit with such enthusiasm. She looked for all the world like a child. Gabrielle took Xena's arm.

"I do," Xena answered.

"But our debt—"

"—to you—"

"—was repaid,"

"in the life—"

"—of a young boy."

"We cannot—"

"—help you—"

"—noble as your—"

"—compassion is."

"_Noooo_!" Callisto screamed, and sparks flickered from finger to finger as her hands raised like claws into the air. "You _must_ grant this! You _must_ hear her!"

Xena reached out for Callisto. "I'm sorry, Callisto—"

"None of your _pity_, Xena," the goddess raged. "I do not need your help now." Callisto stepped backward, her face turned upward. "_Artemis_!" her voice shook the temple walls. "I did your bidding! I killed your enemy! This is my end of the exchange, Artemis! You _owe_ me!"

The priest ducked out the door. A statue turned over. Xena backed Gabrielle away from the dome's center, for fear it would collapse.

Far off, on Olympus, Ares nodded his head at his half-sister. "I believe that's your cue," he said.

High in the temple dome, a small window admitted a single ray of the moon. In its silver pool on the temple's floor formed the figure of a beautiful, armor-clad woman, quiver on her back, bow in hand. "Callisto..." came her clear voice. "Are you sure this is how you wish our debt settled? The gods' favors do not come often."

"Are you trying to renege?" Callisto boomed. "Do you think me more complacent than Velasca was?"

Gabrielle held Xena tightly. Had she really put her life — and her fate — in the mad warrior's hands?

"Not renege," Artemis said. "Just advise."

"Consider me warned. Intercede for me!"

The goddess of the hunt and moon turned her noble face towards the three Fates, and slowly nodded.

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos laid their gaze upon the warrior queen. "Callisto Vengeance—"

"—name your wish. If it's ours to bestow—"

"—it's yours."

Her anger gone, Callisto's voice almost trembled. "I want Xena's raid on Cirra undone. I want my soul back."

The Fates shared a look among them. "There is a price—"

"—for what you ask."

"That price is your godhood."

"In the past you seek—"

"—no ambrosia have you tasted."

Callisto looked at her hands, the sparks still flickering there. "What good is this light, if it shows only how dark I've been?"

The three nodded. "So be it—"

"—all is restored."

There was as swirl of light, and Callisto fell to her knees, her face twisted in pain. The candles flared, and went out, leaving only the streaming moonlight, not a pool now but a wash, touching all the room's corners, cold but gentle. Gabrielle let go Xena's arm, rushing forward.

"Gabrielle!" Xena warned.

The bard knelt by Callisto's side. Little had changed for her, but she thought nothing of it. Her instinct drove her, her compassion. Callisto was hurt, and for the first time, Gabrielle had no fear.

"Callisto?" her hand touched the still-young woman's arm, she tried to see the face through a drape of blonde hair.

Then the head lifted, and the face turned to her own. Gabrielle saw a genuine smile, and looked into eyes of deepest brown that, almost, brimmed with tears.

"I feel — whole," was all Callisto said.

Gabrielle felt very warm inside. "Xena..." she said, eyes still locked with Callisto's, "where should we stop for the night? Isn't there a town here named Cirra?"

Xena stepped forward. "It isn't too far."

Callisto climbed to her feet, then offered a hand to the bard. "Maybe I'll see you there," she said. "I'm going to hurry along. Places to go — family to see."

She turned to go, slowly at first, then, unable to resist, hurrying out.

Gabrielle watched her leave, then sighed deeply. She turned to Xena, and a line creased her brow. "How come I don't feel any different?" she asked.

Xena still watched the doorway. "It's probably because you were in here when things changed," she answered. "Don't worry, you will. It just takes awhile."

Outside they heard the sound of a horse whinnying, then galloping off.

"Shall we follow?" Gabrielle asked.

"Sure," Xena answered, putting her arm around the bard's shoulders.

"Told you we'd walk out together."

Xena offered a small smile. There was nothing behind it, and Xena thanked the dim moonlight for Gabrielle not noticing. Her friend may not feel any change, but Xena did. She felt strange inside. Something was not right.

Callisto had still worn her armor.


	7. Cirra Revisited

VII: Cirra Revisited 

The sky was deep sapphire as Xena and Gabrielle emerged from the temple, the moon climbing, the sun's presence all but gone. Xena mounted Argo and was about to offer Gabrielle a hand up, but the bard, staff in hand, had already started off walking at a brisk pace.

The night was warm. They traveled along for a while, each caught up in her own thoughts, before Gabrielle broke the silence. "What are you thinking about?"

Xena watched the road ahead. "The things in our past that tell us what we're made of."

"Hmm..." Gabrielle cocked her head. "I was thinking about what things might be changed here, and when they'll just seem normal to me. And not even big things, maybe just little things, like, what if here, Joxer is married to Meg?"

Xena gave her a raised eyebrow.

"Did we go to their wedding? Oooh," Gabrielle frowned, "what if they have kids?"

They both laughed.

"I hope they get your looks," Gabrielle teased.

Xena looked shocked amidst her smile, then her face turned a little more serious. "Gabrielle," she said, "I want to apologize for what I said earlier."

"Which time?" Gabrielle asked, still smiling.

"Both," Xena answered dryly, "This morning, I was just worried about not being able to protect you. If Callisto was out... well..."

"I know," her partner nodded. 

"And then, when Callisto took you on her horse, I— I know that you couldn't stop her. I didn't mean to blame you for that."

Only Gabrielle's abrupt silence told Xena the last was a mistake.

"Xena, I can handle myself around Callisto," Gabrielle said finally, stiffly.

Xena frowned. "Really."

"She's not exactly who you think she is, Xena."

The Warrior Princess reined Argo to a stop. "She's tried to kill you twice, Gabrielle!"

The younger woman looked up at her with dark eyes. "Well she had every opportunity, yes. But she never did it. I don't think she really would have." Gabrielle looked away. "She's not just an unfeeling killer."

Xena was mystified. "No, you're right there... she feels quite a bit when she kills someone."

"Xena you haven't seen what I've seen in her." She started walking briskly away.

"All you've _seen_, Gabrielle, is the cunning side of a _butcher_," Xena called after. Shaking her head, she spurred Argo to catch up. "Gabrielle, you're the one who told me that her heart had been eaten away by hatred."

"Well there's nothing like a second chance to find out what we're made of, is there?"

Xena knew there was nothing else right now that she could say that would reach. More uncomfortable than before, they walked on in silence.

* * *

Xena knew, even before they had crested the hill, that something was very wrong. Even after nightfall, every living village makes noise, from the braying and bleating of penned animals to the jingling of a night watchman's armor. But from Cirra, she heard no such noises. Then the sight only confirmed her fear: reflected moonshine was the only light from the grassy ruins the town had long ago become.

"Oh, no..." Gabrielle cried as she looked down on the peaceful yet unsettling scene. "Callisto..." she started running down the hill. Xena followed behind.

It was not hard to find her; Cirra had never been the largest town on the map. Amidst sounds of only night birds and crickets, the soft whinny of Callisto's horse was loud enough to follow. Xena rode Argo in that direction, beyond the scorched walls, past the overgrown well and the broken fences. Just after the last empty shell of a building was something not here before, on her last fateful visit, when the ghosts were still overwhelming to her: in a small field that would likely have been overgrown but for recent trimming, stood an assemblage of headstones. Gabrielle had paused at its edge, and as she climbed down from Argo, Xena knew why from the look in her eyes. She was reluctant to disturb the lone figure crouched on her heels among the grave markers, head bowed and very still. Bolstered by Xena's arrival, the bard took the few cautious steps that brought her to Callisto's side.

"Do you like my field?" Callisto asked softly as Gabrielle knelt down in the grass before the stones. "I used to lie here as a girl, dreaming of my future."

Gabrielle leaned in to look at Callisto's face, and was shocked to see it, always so hard, moist with tears.

"The grass was longer, of course," Callisto looked about. "but I keep it short now, when I can." She met the bard's eyes. "Don't ask me how I know that, I just do." She reached out a hand towards the markers. "I even— even had these stones made. What do you think?"

"Callisto..." Gabrielle spoke gently, her hand touching the other woman's arm.

"It's not fair..." Callisto's lip quivered, then her face twisted in anger and she stood, drawing her sword. "What is this betrayal?!? Show yourselves, maiden and mother! This is not what I asked for! Answer me, crone!"

Gabrielle looked up at the warrior. As familiar as she was with Callisto's anger, this was somehow different. Even shadowed, there was no darkness there. Only grief. 

The Fates provided their own light to add to the pale moon on the graves and grass. Their voices echoed eerily in the stillness of the evening.

"All is restored—"

"—exactly as you asked,"

"Callisto Avenger."

"Nothing has changed," Callisto argued.

"Much has changed," said Atropos.

"But time must be balanced," continued Clotho.

"What do you mean?" Gabrielle asked, standing. "Cirra was still destroyed."

"Not by Xena," Lachesis answered.

"And Callisto's life was not soiled—"

"—by the endless quest for revenge."

Xena left Argo beside Callisto's horse, now just a horse, and approached.

"This is a trick!" Callisto cried.

"This is how the Gods—"

"—have seen things play out."

"_Which_ gods?" Xena asked as she reached the others, suspicious.

"Artemis wouldn't do this to me, not after how I helped her," Callisto said, mostly to herself, unbelieving.

"Fates, if I did not destroy this town, then what warlord did?" Xena asked.

An image flashed in Callisto's head. War cries, orange flame. A warlord on horseback. She knew who it was before the Fates answered.

"Her name is Velasca," Atropos intoned.

Callisto felt sick. But there was no time for that.

"Did you say _is_?" Gabrielle asked. "Velasca's alive?"

"Her heart beats," Lachesis said, "But pumps no blood."

"So she is a god again." Callisto spoke bitterly.

"Then we'll have to destroy her, like before," Gabrielle said with more confidence than she felt.

Xena and Callisto exchanged a glance. Each mind was racing ahead. "It's not that simple, Gabrielle," Xena said.

"What do you mean?" the bard asked.

Callisto turned to face her. "She means me, Gabrielle. I'm no longer a god here. And you need a god to fight one."

"We can figure something out."

Callisto shook her head. "That's not all. You're still alive."

"I don't understand."

Callisto met Xena's eyes a second time. "Fates, keepers of time," she called. "If I did not fight her, who stayed Velasca's hand from Gabrielle?"

"Ares," Clotho said simply.

Gabrielle was more confused than ever. "But why would Ares..."

"To take Velasca into his fold," Xena answered. "Because neither Callisto or I would stay there."

The bard shook her head. "So you're saying that Ares is the one who twisted Callisto's request with the Fates."

Callisto sheathed her sword. "And to get to Ares, I have to go through Velasca. How convenient." Decision made, she headed for her horse.

"Callisto, where are you going?" Xena asked.

"To find her."

"Now?"

Gabrielle caught up to the striding warrior. "Callisto, there's nothing we can do _right now_." She glanced at Xena and back. "We should all rest. There's another village nearby we can stay in."

"Yes, I've been to the market there," Callisto said, behind an unreadable expression. "All right."

Gabrielle nodded. Callisto started off for Whirlwind again, the bard a step behind.

"Gabrielle..." Xena's voice stopped them both. The two turned to face her, Gabrielle's look questioning. "You could ride with me this time," Xena said

"Oh..." Gabrielle looked from Xena to Callisto, who smiled just a bit. "Sure."

As she changed course to walk with the Warrior Princess, Gabrielle turned back to where the Fates had stood, a question on her lips. But their weaving had already taken them elsewhere than the ghost-town of Cirra.


	8. A Night in Pharsalus

VIII: A Night in Pharsalus 

The town of Pharsalus, residing at a crossroads, was a bustling one — though not at the late hour that the three women rode into it on their horses. Its large marketplace was empty and silent, the inns all dark, taverns nearly the same, but for a barkeep or two shuffling the last drunk out the doors.

Two of the three women had memories of here; Gabrielle was all but asleep against Xena's shoulder. The Warrior Princess knew this town from a visit or two, but little more. Unlike Cirra, Pharsalus had paid its tribute, and been spared the work of her army.

For Callisto, this place produced a jumble of memories she could not quite sort out. Bartering trips with her family, every season, those were clear and distinct, though bittersweet. Endless hours spent wandering the booths and stalls, alone or with her sister, while mama bargained. Looking at pretty fabrics she one day dreamed of buying, working on Penthia's loom. Or hanging about at the trappers shops, listening to hunters share their stories and techniques, almost a pet for the shopkeepers indulging the little girl.

But then two sets of memories after that fateful night, and neither very clear. Had those blissful days descended to the tortured years as an urchin? What did she really feel as she looked at these stone walls and wooden doors? If she felt at all?

"We'll have more luck making camp out of town," Xena interrupted her thoughts. "No one's awake to help us here."

Callisto looked about at the black windows beside otherwise friendly inn signs on the long street of accommodations. Then she looked at the drowsy bard on Xena's saddle behind the warrior. "Let's give at least one a try."

Xena gave a glance to the head on her shoulder and, raising a private smile, nodded. "C'mon, Gabrielle," she urged softly, as Callisto dismounted and led her own horse towards the one door that offered at least a candle's worth of light beyond, bearing the posted sign, "The Wandering Cyclops". Gabrielle roused just enough not to need help climbing down Argo's flank.

No one was in the small lobby of the sturdily-built little inn. The candle burned very low on the crude counter, but no light at all came from the doorway behind it. "Hello?" Xena called gently as Gabrielle rested elbows on the counter top, lids half-closed. Callisto secured the horses outside. "Anyone awake?" Xena's voice was pitched almost so as not to rouse anyone who wasn't already.

After a long moment there was a quiet bustle and grumbling from within. "...bothering us at this time of night," came an old woman's voice, followed presently by the leathered crone it belonged to, wrapped in a thick blanket atop her night clothes. "People have no sense to travel at respectable times of day..." The woman trained unkeen eyes upon Xena and Gabrielle with great suspicion. "You might as well be on your way, you. We don't have no rooms—"

Blinking, the woman leaned forward, eyes focused on the doorway. "—Callisto!" the crone drew a breath as the warrior stepped inside. "I didn't see you back there. I do have _your_ room..."

Callisto met Xena's eyes, but offered nothing to them. "We're all together," she told the innkeeper.

The woman raised her eyebrows, raising the candle stub and looking Xena and Gabrielle over. "Both of them?"

Callisto's voice held the hint of amusement. "Yes, we're _all_ together."

"Will you be needing an extra cot, or is the one bed—"

"Extra cots, please. Two of them."

The innkeeper fidgeted. "I only have one extra..."

"We'll make do," Xena answered.

With an unsure glance at the Warrior Princess, the old woman nodded to Callisto. "Follow me," she said, and started off through the inner door.

"I'll take the cot," Callisto said, lips curled in a small smile as she headed after the innkeep. "C'mon sleepyhead," she roused Gabrielle gently as she passed, bringing a frown to Xena's face as the Warrior Princess coaxed the bard to follow behind.

* * *

Xena found her sleep fitful as the previous day's events roiled in her mind. That Gabrielle kept stealing the covers was only a minor annoyance. Worse was leaning up from the bed to peer beyond the bard at the nearby cot, and being unable, in the room's dimness, to discern whether Callisto's eyes, turned towards the bed each time she looked, were open or closed.

What was going on in that head of hers? Did it matter to her that Velasca had destroyed Cirra, or in her madness did she still somehow blame Xena? Or was it both, now? There were more unsettling thoughts as well; the Fates had changed Xena's path at least once, but right now all her memories were giving her fits. And it was her deeds that said who she was — so what _was_ she here and now? The one thing she should have been sure of more than any other was the woman lying beside her. Yet even that bond had been frayed. Gabrielle's compassion knew no bounds, of this Xena was sure — but how much of her actions towards Callisto had been only that, how much was Callisto's preternatural charm... and how much something Xena could not bear to fathom?

She leaned up again, looking over at the cot, to no change — and leaning back, met the open eyes of Gabrielle, watching her. "Stop fidgeting, Xena."

"Sorry," Xena smiled.

Gabrielle closed her eyes, snuggling her pillow. "You'd think you'd never seen a hero before..." her voice was low and sleepy. "You never act this way around Hercules..."

Disturbed to her core, Xena resigned herself to completing the night studying ceiling beams.

* * *

Sunlight through the lone window opened Xena's eyes, and both the empty spot beside her and empty cot across said she had slept some after all. The smell of oatmeal and eggs drew her out into The Wandering Cyclops' common room, where the crowd of a dozen ranged from well-dressed merchants to dusty clothed travelers. Plus, one pretty young bard, composing a scroll, and an attentive blonde companion, seated beside her. The two conversed in hushed tones. She had the feeling that more than her own eyes watched the pair.

Xena sat on the bench across the table from the two, wearing the slightest frown. Callisto kept reading intently. Gabrielle looked up only to push her steaming bowl of porridge across to the Warrior Princess. "Here, finish this... I'm not hungry. It's still warm." 

Eating a spoonful, Xena looked at the shadows on the floor. "We should get going, the sun's already high."

"We need to know where to go first," Callisto answered, not looking up.

"Sitting around isn't going to accomplish that," Xena almost growled.

Callisto met her eyes. She indicated the scroll. "No, but studying Velasca might. You see, in the life I _remember_, I didn't know her all that well before I killed her, so I'm reading Gabrielle's account."

Xena ate another spoonful, not answering.

"Could you see if they have juice?" Gabrielle looked up from her work at Xena. "I'm parched."

Mouth half-open, Xena sighed and stood, heading for the service bar. "Juice, any kind," she told the old innkeeper. The outside door was darkened by several large, loud shapes in the form of sweaty, leather-clad warriors.

"Barkeep, ale!" called one as the five of them entered the common room.

"Just a minute," the crone called, shuffling off to fetch Xena's juice.

"Not a minute," the first, with a hanging belly and arms crisscrossed by scars, yelled, "_Now_!"

"Patience is a virtue," Xena said, and thought she heard a light laugh behind her.

The warrior growled. "You got somethin' to say to me, lady?!"

Xena drew back. "You're breath is saying enough for both of us."

The innkeep set down her juice. Xena snatched it up just before the warrior's mace came down to smash it all over the bar. She walked back to their table.

"I'm not finished with you!" the fat man yelled after her, to the rousing approval of his friends.

"You're about to be," Xena said under her breath. She set down the mug, but Gabrielle stood instead of taking it.

"I'd be a little more careful," the bard called to the warrior, the pride obvious in her voice. "That's Xena, Warrior Princess."

The man turned a shrug to his colleagues. "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Huh, brat?"

Callisto just leaned back and smiled.

Xena turned slowly back around. "What was that?"

"None of your business, _princess_," the warrior chuckled, stepping forward, fellows close behind. "I was conversing with the brat." He reached out a meaty paw and grabbed the bard by the arm. "Eh, brat?"

Xena let out a yell and smashed down a bracer on the man's wrist. Hand suddenly numb, he let Gabrielle go. Xena planted a spinning kick to his chest, he reeled backwards. Gabrielle reached for her staff, the four other leather-clad men drew their weapons, and the fight was on.

Gabrielle ducked a sword blow and countered with a staff across the bridge of the nose. Xena retrieved the helmet that fell off the man's head and bounced it off two other skulls. The helmet-less warrior recovered his feet only to have them swept out from under him again by the staff.

The fat warrior grabbed a nearby chair and swung it at Xena's back as she traded sword blows with the fifth fighter. She heard the whistling in time to duck and the wood smashed to pieces over her opponent's head. Rising back up, Xena gave the fat man an elbow smash to the chest.

Two maces came at Xena from opposite directions. With a full-throated "Aiyiyiyiyiyiyiy!" she planted a boot in one man's belly, the other's chest, the first's head, actually running up them, and flipped to a somersault over their heads. One mace merely found the air, but the other, its owner still spinning from the swing, clobbered Gabrielle from behind as she worked the helmet-less fighter over with a series of staff blows.

Callisto stood up.

The fighter over Gabrielle shook his head, slinging blood from his smashed nose away. He raised his sword high as the bard, on her knees, tried to recover her senses.

Callisto gave the bench she'd been sitting on a hard shove from the end, and it skittered across the floor and into the unhelmeted warrior's knees, overbalancing him. He fell straight back, head catching the edge of the bar, and was out cold before he hit the floor.

Xena sent one of the two still-standing warriors tumbling with a strong backhand. He caught the fat man in the back, and the battles' first aggressor sprawled forward directly towards Callisto. She instinctively caught him by the throat, and jerked him up to eye level.

His look was one of terror. "Callisto!" he exclaimed.

"Feel like behaving?" she said calmly.

"Uh... yeah, yeah!" he gasped.

Callisto spun him around. "Well find somewhere else to do it!" She planted a boot in his backside and sent him stumbling towards the doorway. Off balance, he tripped at the doorsill and sprawled out into the street, just missing an incoming patron who stepped aside at the last second.

"Nothing like one of those to start the morning," said the chipper, curly-blond man in an open vest and leather pants.

Even woozy, Gabrielle recognized the voice instantly. "Iolaus!" she called as Xena helped her to her feet.

Iolaus let his eyes adjust from the brightness outside, surveying the piles of bodies slowly untangling themselves. Xena and Gabrielle stepped forward to greet him, but he had other plans.

"Callisto!" Iolaus exclaimed happily, and came over to welcome the warrior with an exuberant hug. 

Callisto's expression was guarded as she pulled back from Iolaus as far as his friendly arms would allow.

"I'm glad to see you here," he said, eyes studying her face like remembering old territory.

"What brings you to these parts, Iolaus?" Callisto asked.

He looked around at the groggy miscreants. "They did, actually. I've been following them for some time."

"Iolaus?" Gabrielle called, a little put off.

The warrior turned his head and finally saw the others. "Gabrielle," he acknowledged, and then, with even less enthusiasm, "Xena..."

He looked back to Callisto. "Let's sit down, I'd like to talk to you."

Callisto nodded and they moved to a table. Gabrielle and Xena followed. Iolaus offered Callisto a questioning glance.

"Oh, they're with me."

He nodded acceptance. "Callisto," Iolaus said as they sat, "I want to thank you again for helping Hercules save his family — well, and saving me too — when Velasca poisoned us."

Xena and Gabrielle exchanged a glance at time's revision.

For Callisto, the demi-god's name brought back a flood of memories and a rush of emotions so strong she caught her breath. Of the miracle of Hercules passing through just days after Velasca's raid. Of how he had spent time trying to find a family to take her in, but settled, at last, for doing so himself. How he had become like the father she had never known, and Clonus, Aeson, and Ilea little brothers and sister to her, soothing her own loss. How he had taught her, against his better judgment but to end her constant pestering, the skills she had with weapons.

How, after she had left that home to strike out on her own, tragedy had invaded her life another time, and Hera had taken her second family away as Velasca had her first.

"I owe Hercules more than I can ever repay," Callisto said. As she turned her eyes to the Warrior Princess and bard, Callisto knew from their faces that this memory was reaching them too. She reached a hand across the table to hold Iolaus'. "And I couldn't let her take any more family away from me, could I?" 

Iolaus swallowed a lump, nodding.

"So you were following them?" she indicated the warriors even now dragging themselves out the door.

"Yes, they're scouting easy pickings for a warlord that's been marauding through these parts."

"Velasca?" Callisto asked.

Iolaus looked confused. "Velasca? She hasn't been around in a while. Not since she got hold of that ambrosia." His glance at Xena was more than a little accusatory.

Callisto turned to Xena. Gabrielle leaned in between them. "Could be anyone," she said. "We don't know who's alive in this time."

The two nodded.

"Is it Virgilius?" Xena asked Iolaus.

"No, ah—"

"Atyminius?" Callisto offered.

Iolaus shook his head.

"Toxeus?"

"No—"

"Mezentius?"

"Not him—"

"Sinteres!" Gabrielle stuck out a finger, her look confident.

"No," Iolaus held up his hands. "Callisto, you've killed every one of those."

Xena and Gabrielle were each speechless, Xena's brow furrowed, Gabrielle's eyes wide. Callisto, for her part, looked positively sheepish.

"Well then who is it?" Xena asked impatiently.

"It's Theodorus."

Xena and Callisto looked at each other, both shocked this time. "Theodorus??" they said together.

Callisto shook her head. "Theodorus is an ape who can follow orders. Exactly who Velasca would choose to work through."

"But like I said—" Iolaus began.

"Trust me," Callisto cut him off. "Since she became a god, you've seen more of Velasca than you can imagine."

Iolaus thought on that. "So, does this mean I can get your help?"

Callisto felt a connection happen deep inside; a piece of herself, long missing, gently put back in place. She smiled warmly, and gripped his hand again. "You can count on it."


	9. Skirmish

IX: Skirmish 

Iolaus easily put the group back on Theodorus' trail after a brief breakfast. As she and Gabrielle trailed a few paces behind, walking Argo, Xena wondered how unprepared Theodorus would be when then found him, considering how animatedly Iolaus was entertaining Callisto. The blonde warrior didn't seem to mind the attention one bit.

"Now there's something I never imagined seeing," Gabrielle said beside her. "Kind of strange how _that_ one worked out."

"Mmm hmm," was Xena's only reply.

The bard tilted her head, thinking. "So if you think about it, you could have been Callisto's foster step-mother."

"Gabrielle, don't go there," Xena said.

Gabrielle smiled to herself.

Ahead, Iolaus gestured wildly with one hand at some anecdote, while the other came to rest on the bare small of Callisto's back.

"You know the old Callisto would have broken his hand by now," the bard said.

Xena looked at her sidelong. "Jealousy doesn't look good on you, Gabrielle."

"I'm not jealous!" Gabrielle's said, wide-eyed. "I mean he's practically her uncle, anyway."

"Uh huh."

"...so I was right," Iolaus said, "after he hadn't eaten for a while, Salmoneus reacted to the gold nuggets just like he always would."

"So the food _was_ drugged..." Callisto concluded.

"Exactly!"

Callisto smiled. This was so new to her, this feeling, yet so familiar. She wanted to drown in it. "So how is King Iphicles?"

"Oh, Iphicles is his dour self."

"And Alcmene?"

"She's fine." He turned to her. "She's disappointed _you_ don't stop by to see her more often."

"Soon, Iolaus," Callisto said, her eyes on the blue sky, petting Whirlwind's nose as she led her along.

Iolaus touched her arm. "Callisto, where _have_ you been for so long?"

She smiled enigmatically, glancing over her shoulder at Xena and Gabrielle. "Between a rock and a hard place, actually."

His face was serious. "You know, Herc was really hurt that no one could find you for the wedding."

Callisto stopped. "What wedding?"

"Actually, it happened so fast we couldn't find anybody; I was the only one there."

"What _wedding_, Iolaus?"

He lowered his head for a moment. "Her name was Serena. She was the last of the Hind, pledged to Ares."

"'Was', Iolaus?" she wore the hurt she felt on her face.

"Just after they were married, she was murdered by Strife."

Callisto's jaw trembled. "Oh, Hercules..."

He raised his hands. "It was all part of Ares' plan to destroy Herc and to bring Xena back into his fold as a warlord." 

Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Her tone was even as she started walking again. "If Ares wants war, he'll get one."

Iolaus shrugged. "So what else is new?" He hurried to catch up with Callisto. "It's funny, you sound just like him."

Callisto turned her head as she walked. "Who, Ares?"

"No, your father," he said. "I mean, you know, Hercules."

Callisto half-smiled, but kept moving. Her eyes followed the tracks they'd been following, turning a different way into the brush. She signaled back the change to Xena, and the Warrior Princess nodded.

Her senses kept to the tracking easily. But her heart was dwelling on another newlywed she knew whose life had been cut too short. His name was Perdicus.

* * *

Gabrielle held the two sets of reins while the others crept forward in the brush, on a hillock overlooking the noises.

"I count twenty," Callisto said. "But this is hardly a camp."

"More like a rendezvous point," Xena concluded. She looked at Iolaus. "This can't be all that's doing the raiding you've been talking about."

Iolaus shook his head. "No, Theodorus has at least a hundred in his army, maybe more."

"Maybe a lot more," Callisto touched Xena's arm. "Isn't that Zagreus down there?"

Xena looked closer, spotting the bald man. "Yes, it is."

"He traveled with your army. How many men do you think he could pledge?"

"What's that?" Iolaus asked.

"Only forty or fifty, but I see you're point," Xena said.

"What point?" Iolaus poked her.

Callisto bent her head down below Xena's to look at him. "My guess is that Zagreus is here to meet Theodorus and pledge his own army. And where there's one, there's probably more. Who and how many is the question."

"And for what," Iolaus replied.

"Maybe Zagreus knows..." Xena wondered aloud.

Callisto turned a sly smile to her. "Do you want to—" with the index and middle finger of each hand, she poked the air, "—ask him?"

Xena raised an eyebrow. "If I can get him alone."

"Oh," Callisto said, "allow me." With barely a rustle of grass she disappeared into the undergrowth. 

Xena started to back up.

"Wait," Iolaus stopped her with a hand. "Where's she going?"

"Just watch. Signal me when she's coming, I'm going back to the horses." Equally silent, she vanished as well.

Iolaus sighed and looked back down to the gathering. Amidst the bustle, Zagreus had drifted near the edge of the small clearing, watching the boasting and back-slapping mixture of his own men and some Iolaus recognized as troops of Theodorus. Had he not been watching the warlord — as he alone was, in fact — Iolaus would not have seen him disappear backwards into the trees with nary time for a yell.

It would have been perfect if there hadn't been a commotion in the camp just a moment later that was the arrival of several warriors on horseback — one of them Theodorus, looking for Zagreus. As Iolaus watched, the warriors began to band into search parties and fan out into the woods. With a last glance, Iolaus rolled to his feet and sprinted to beat the searchers.

* * *

"Where are the others?" Gabrielle asked as Xena returned. She had secured Argo and Whirlwind.

"Iolaus is still scouting," Xena said. "Callisto is bringing an old friend to see me."

"An old friend?"

"We didn't spot Theodorus, but some of his men were there along with another warlord, one who used to travel with me. You remember Zagreus, don't you? From Laurel?"

Gabrielle nodded.

"Could be he is supposed to meet Theodorus here."

"But what would they be meeting about?" the bard asked.

Zagreus, hands bound behind and mouth gagged, fell into the dead leaves at their feet.

"Why don't we ask him?" Callisto said, grabbing the squirming man by the scruff of the neck and dragging him up to his knees. "One warlord, delivered." She tugged the slip knot on the gag and pulled it from his mouth.

"Hello, Zagreus," Xena smiled. With the quickness of a snake striking she stabbed the pressure points on either side of his neck.

"I love that," Callisto said to Gabrielle.

"I'm sure you remember this, Zagreus, but just to remind you: I've cut off the flow of blood to your brain. You'll be dead in seconds if you don't tell me what I want to know." She leaned down close to the warlord. "Why are you out here with Theodorus' men?"

He forced the words through a face twisted in pain. "I— I was supposed to meet him here! He wants me to join up with him. He's gathering all the warlords."

Xena frowned. "What do you mean, _all_?"

"Every warlord he can find!" he grunted.

"Why?" Callisto asked.

The answer to that question was interrupted by the lunging of an armor-clad warrior in the direction of Callisto's back. The back became her front, and the lunge landed him on the point of her drawn sword. A fierce battle cry and the arrival of half a dozen warriors to effect their leader's rescue drowned his scream. Callisto shoved the first warrior's body aside.

"You were only supposed to bring Zagreus, not all his men!" Xena called, dodging and slashing.

"I didn't invite them!" Callisto said, turning around and elbowing two warriors in the midsection, then flipping them over onto their backs.

Iolaus pounded towards them, grabbing a warrior by the head from behind and slamming it into the ground. "No, that would have been Theodorus. There's more on the way!"

Iolaus was right. Drawn by the commotion, other search parties were arriving. The two warriors still standing became eight, then twelve, then twenty.

Gabrielle repeated Callisto's performance with her staff, winding two soldiers with the stick in their gut then flipping them over on their backs. She planted the end of her staff and pivoted over it, two feet to the back of a warrior attacking Iolaus.

"Thanks," Iolaus told her before ankle-tackling an oncoming attacker.

With a nod, Gabrielle turned her own attention to a large man brandishing a spiked mace at her. She dodged and parried, waiting for him to commit to a blow, then slipped left around it and gave a sharp whack to the back of his skull. He wavered on his feet, and she swept them out from under him.

Looking around, Gabrielle was caught up in the dazzling spectacle of Callisto and Xena. She had often, of course, marveled at Xena's prowess in battle, but seeing the two side by side almost made her catch her breath.

Xena greeted the swing of a halberd with a fluid sidestep and a grab of the shaft, then with a sharp jerk upwards drove the weapon's handle into the armpit of its bearer, and bringing the weapon to one side slipped it behind his back and broke his shoulder with a crunch. Beside her, Callisto waited for her opponent to make a sword thrust and dodged it, grabbing his outstretched wrist. The hard slam of her other fist, still clutching her sword, snapped his elbow the wrong way. He dropped, screaming. With a new opponent coming up behind her, Callisto made a backwards somersault and landed sitting atop his shoulders, then raked her nails up his face. When he fell to his knees, planting her feet back on the ground, she grabbed his hair and drove his face into the dirt.

The two were in their element. As more soldiers closed in they stood back to back, swords and fists cutting red ribbons through the enemy. They even seemed to pick up one another's rhythm, forcing opponents coming from each one's weak side back behind them to the other's strength.

A flail-wielding warrior approached at an angle behind Callisto's sword hand while Xena was twisted to him blind-sided. The warrior spun his weapon back for a hard blow at the Warrior Princess. Seeing him from the corner of her eye, Callisto turned her head. "Xena!" she called. Xena looked around and ducked backward against Callisto's back as the blonde warrior leaned forward. The spiked ball on chain whistled over her nose by inches. With her momentum carrying her, Xena rolled completely over Callisto to end on her feet facing the other woman. They shared a smile, then a double swing at the off-balanced flail-wielder. After a short flight, he caught a tree trunk head on.

Gabrielle saw between them a kindred spirit, like that she'd seen between Hercules and Iolaus. If circumstances had been different, they could have been the best of friends.

There was a sharp whistle, and the bard's attention turned to a familiar yet unfamiliar face, a clean-shaven and almost handsome Theodorus, his mostly bare chest still bearing a wicked scar, astride a powerful horse not twenty feet away. At his signal most of the soldiers still standing broke for the woods. Iolaus concluded the departure with a kick to the seat of one warrior's pants.

"Well, Callisto," his deep, accented voice rumbled, "we meet again. Too bad I don't have time to talk."

"Yes," Callisto replied. "I could finish your scar collection."

He turned to the Warrior Princess. "You used to be a great warlord, Xena. What mistake paired you up with Miss Goody-Two-Sandals?"

"Long story," Xena said dryly.

"We'll have to catch up sometime. Right now I have others to see, since you've ruined the meeting I had planned." He nodded, then wheeled his horse about and rode off.

The direction of his nod brought their attention to Zagreus' unmoving body nearby. Sighing, Callisto squatted on her heels next to the warlord. His eyes were open and staring, a trail of blood ran from his nose. Distracted by the fight, Xena's pinch had gone on much too long. "I guess we won't get the answer to our question, will we?" 

Shaking her head, she stood and put her sword away on her back. She looked after Theodorus' departing back. "I've never seen him so confident."

Xena pursed her lips. "When you have a god behind you, I suppose that comes easy."

"Did it for you?" Callisto asked.

The Warrior Princess was a little taken aback. She thought on her past, and how Callisto was right. At her peak, Ares had been right behind her. "I guess it did." She looked at the blonde warrior. "How about you?"

Callisto took a deep breath. "The glory of war was never my concern."

Iolaus stepped up to the pair, Gabrielle at his side. "So what's our next move?"

"We keep following," Xena said. "We still don't know just what he's up to."

Callisto had another thought, one she didn't share. It was whether, when they found out, they'd be strong enough to stop it.


	10. Rabbits and Campfires

X: Rabbits and Campfires 

For all its size, and Xena's best estimates put its numbers at around thirty five, the remains of Zagreus' party moved surprisingly fast. The group had no trouble following, but even on horseback they saw none of it. Callisto kept her rising anxiety in check by losing herself in Iolaus' conversation while he chatted on about Falafel and Iphicles and things of Corinth.

She loved listening to his voice. It reminded her of... home. She could close her eyes and picture it: Hercules and Iolaus talking in the next room while she and Deianeira were putting Aeson and Ilea to bed; or Iolaus trying to distract Clonus while Callisto helped him with his lessons. Endless stories of Cyclopes and Minotaurs, his many exploits with father, at the dinner table when he would visit... which, she thought with a smile, was all the time.

And then, she remembered lying in bed, overhearing Iolaus' other tales to her foster parents. Tales of brutal warlords destroying and raiding villages across the countryside. Tales of feared names like Mezentius and Krykus, Xena, Dagnine, and... Velasca. Tales that Hercules tried to keep Callisto from hearing. But it was these stories that drove her so hard, made her so passionate about her own studies with the sword and staff, bow and chakram — many of which she learned on her own, after too many of those tales entreated her to leave the shelter of protection Hercules had made for her, to challenge those evils that had to be faced, had to be stopped somehow.

And it was Iolaus' voice that gave her the news... that Deianeira and the children had been murdered while she was elsewhere, fighting the evils.

"Callisto?"

She turned her head to him, opening her eyes.

"You haven't really told me why you're traveling with Xena," he said quietly. "Oh, don't get me wrong," he glanced back at the others, "I'm glad you two have worked out your differences... I guess..."

"More than you have," she forced a smile.

"Yeah, well," he shrugged.

"I don't blame you, Iolaus," Callisto reassured. "What she tried to get you to do... to turn you against Hercules... well, she wasn't a very good person back then. And you know how I am about father — I was as reluctant as you to believe she'd changed. But she's trying."

Iolaus shook his head. "You have his heart, Callisto. Sometimes I marvel at both of you."

Xena spurred Argo up alongside them. "I think we should set up camp for the night. We're not going to gain any more ground until we get some rest."

"Agreed," Callisto said. 

They found a suitably secluded spot and dismounted, then unpacked their gear. As Xena set up a firepit, Iolaus headed off to gather kindling.

"I'm guessing that leaves us with dinner," Callisto said to Gabrielle as the bard lifted Argo's saddle off the mare.

"Oh," Gabrielle raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, I guess."

"Do you and Xena usually take turns hunting?" Callisto asked. "What does she like to eat?"

"She's not picky," Gabrielle chewed her lip. "Too bad you don't still have your powers... you could just whip something up," she half-laughed.

Callisto cocked her head. "You don't hunt, do you?"

"Well," Gabrielle cleared her throat, "Xena usually catches dinner, and, well, I cook."

"And what if you're alone?"

The younger woman fidgeted.

Callisto furrowed her brow. "You haven't really been alone, have you? Ever, I mean."

"No," Gabrielle admitted humbly. "Since I left Poteidaia I've always been with Xena."

Callisto touched Gabrielle's arm gently. "Come on... let's go catch dinner." Grabbing a rope from her things, Callisto guided Gabrielle towards the brush with an arm about the bard's shoulders. "We'll be back!" she called to Xena.

Looking up from her work, the Warrior Princess nodded but said nothing. With a frown on her lips and a strange flutter in her heart, she watched the two head off into the trees together.

* * *

"No, no," Callisto coached gently, "thread it through _there_, then pull it tight."

Gabrielle nodded. This was exciting; Xena never showed her things like this. Gabrielle wondered if it was so she'd feel more needed, which of course was totally absurd. Obviously Gabrielle needed Xena, but Xena was still funny about it sometimes.

"So, what are we after? Boar?" Gabrielle asked, starting to coil the rope.

Callisto looked at her, smiling slightly. "Let's start a little smaller. How 'bout rabbit?"

"Oh," Gabrielle blushed.

"Don't worry, I make a good stew," Callisto said, diverting the embarrassment. "But you'll need to catch a couple, because Iolaus can eat quite a bit."

"Me? Aren't you going to—"

"No, no, the only thing _I'm_ catching out here are spices and some roots." She put a hand to Gabrielle's shoulder. "You'll do fine." 

They spent a while finding young saplings and low branches to bend, and Callisto described the finer points of baiting and disguising traps, but Gabrielle did all the work herself. Still, despite her accurate work, Callisto had the feeling Gabrielle was not entirely focused on the task at hand. Something about the way her eyes seemed to be studying Callisto.

"What is it, Gabrielle?" she asked at last.

The bard shook off her distraction. "Hmm?"

"What _are_ you thinking about? Because it's not rabbits."

"It's you," Gabrielle said. "I'm trying to piece together my memories. It doesn't seem that much has changed for Xena and myself here; she took a different route, but got to the same place to meet me. And a few of the names have changed, but I seem to have the same memories of our time together." She cocked her head. "But you... you couldn't be more different."

"You noticed, huh?"

"It's funny. That other life is starting to feel like a dream that I just woke up from." She looked off. 

"I'm remembering things, stories I used to hear, you know, from townsfolk or travelers, about the brave Callisto and her deeds, with Hercules, and on your own. Things that made me want to leave Poteidaia, to find adventures like that."

Callisto looked down. "So in a way, I brought you to Xena."

Gabrielle thought about that. "I guess you did." She leaned down a bit, to look in Callisto's eyes. "And despite all I thought I'd gone through with you... it's like I'm getting to know you for the first time."

"I suppose you are." She smiled a little. "So is that why you keep looking at me the way you have been?"

The bard shook her head, "No, I just can't tell if I like the blue or the brown better."

Callisto's smile widened. "Catch our dinner." With a turn and a step into the trees, she started off on her own food quest, her heart a little lighter than before.

* * *

"That's enough, Iolaus," Xena said as he was about to start on his third trip for firewood. "We're only staying one night."

He looked back at the fire and the two-foot stack of kindling and wood beside it. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Xena sat back from her stoking to a log beside. "You don't have to avoid me, you know."

"I'm not trying—"

She met his eyes.

"All right, I suppose I was." He approached the fire and squatted near it, and began to break up some dry twigs, tossing the remains into the flames. "I can at least make the same effort as Callisto."

"I thought we were over all that, Iolaus."

"It's hard to get over being used."

Xena sighed. It had been hard enough getting over this the first time. "I was a different person back then."

His voice was bitter. "Were you? You seduced me, you seduced Hercules..." He nodded his head towards the woods. "It seems like you've seduced Callisto. How do I know your intentions are different now than then?"

"Do you see an army here, Iolaus?" she was angry. "And I didn't seduce Hercules... that was more."

"Gee, thanks."

She shook her head. "I'm not going to apologize for that anymore, Iolaus, I've done it enough. What I've done lately should be more important than what I did in the past."

"And traveling with Callisto makes you some kind of hero? Is she supposed to rub off on you?"

"Callisto sought me out, Iolaus!"

Iolaus held up his hands. "Look... this isn't going very well. I'm sorry. It's just that... that girl is family to me. I don't have much of that."

Xena took a deep breath. "Neither does she," she said, surprising herself.

He tossed another twig. "Yeah, you're right... neither does she. I guess I'm just upset because she's been gone for so long and I don't know why. And then, to find her with you, considering—"

"—considering our past... I understand."

"Callisto is strong. But she's lost so much already..."

Xena looked off. "Well, we all have."

His tone was firm. "Not like her."

She met his eyes. "Iolaus, believe me, her loss is something I think about a lot."

He read the honesty in her face, and nodded. Taking a deep breath, his voice became light. "Now where did they go for our dinner, Athens?"

* * *

"This stew is delicious," Iolaus said, with a mouth full of it.

Callisto smiled. "You always say that."

He shrugged. "It's always delicious."

"Thank the Great Rabbit Hunter," she deferred to Gabrielle.

The bard was relishing her own bowl. "No, no, rabbit is good, but this is fantastic. Where did you get this recipe?"

Callisto involved herself in her stew. "I learned it when I was a girl. My next door neighbor in Cirra taught me."

Gabrielle shifted on the log beside Xena. She gave the Warrior Princess a brief sidelong glance, but Xena was staring at the fire. "Well, it's... it's really terrific. You'll have to teach me."

Callisto smiled at her, "I'd be glad to." Her eyes drifted to Xena, the smile faded.

Watching her, Gabrielle ate another spoonful. "Iolaus," she said, "why don't you tell us one of your stories. Callisto tells me you're a great storyteller."

Iolaus grinned at the blonde warrior. "Does she?"

Xena looked up. "Gabrielle's a great storyteller too."

"Xena's right," Callisto nodded. "I've read some of Gabrielle's scrolls."

"Oh, then we can take turns," Iolaus said. He ladled another bowl of stew from the pot over the campfire. "Let's see... do you want to hear how Hercules and Callisto freed Prometheus?"

Xena coughed, her stew traveling the wrong path.

Gabrielle pounded her on the back. "You okay?"

"Fine," Xena gasped.

"Uhm, let's skip that story, Iolaus," Gabrielle said.

"All right..." Iolaus frowned.

Callisto touched his arm. "Tell us about when Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena asked you to pick which was the most beautiful."

Gabrielle leaned forward, wide eyed. "Oh yes, that sounds interesting."

They went on that way for hours, trading stories, with tales of Death, Hephaestus, Nemesis and Sisyphus. Callisto wanted to cry from the utter peace of it. Even as she was stretching out on her bedroll, the two were going at it. She wrapped herself up in it.

From her own blanket nearby, Xena leaned up on her elbow. "You had to get them started, didn't you?"

"You don't enjoy it?" Callisto whispered.

"Like they don't talk enough as it is."

She laughed. "Then you're missing the point." Callisto looked up at the stars through the canopy of trees. "I enjoy hearing people talk. I've missed too much of it."

Xena lay back down. "I envy you."

Callisto rolled onto side, facing the Warrior Princess. "Now there's a switch."

"Everything's new to you here," Xena said. "I wish I could have that."

Callisto was silent for a few moments. When she spoke her words were quiet. "Don't envy me, Xena. There's still a hole in my heart so big I can't fill it. I'm just making do better here."

As she lay still and began to drift off, still listening to the voices of her friends, Xena began to share in Callisto's anxiety for the days ahead. Though for entirely different reasons.


	11. Battle Tides

XI: Battle Tides 

Maelon was a village like any other. Its business was farming, like most; this year, its harvest was not memorable. So it did not ask for what it received, but none ever did. Its sole crime was that it was in the way. 

Atop a hillock nearby, Theodorus frowned. "It hardly looks worthwhile stopping for. Especially when I have a comfortable lead, and Balthus waiting with ten thousand men three leagues up the road."

His men, a ways behind him, could not see Theodorus' companion. To them, he was talking to the air. While it bothered a few, to his lieutenants it was merely an unusual idiosyncrasy, tolerable because, in matters of war, his judgment for the past couple of months, since he developed the oddity, had been incontestable. Some whispered he talked to Ares, others didn't care at all. All followed Theodorus without question.

"Theodorus, _all_ pillage is worthwhile," spoke the wicked beauty beside him. "Besides, a lead on what? Four warriors? You have a great army."

"I have faced Callisto," he frowned, glancing self-consciously at the scar across his chest. "She alone is worth a hundred. And the Warrior Princess rides with her."

"Oh, I have faced Xena... though she took pains to avoid me, both as a general _and_ to protect her little Amazon Princess," Velasca said with disgust. "There is nothing to worry about."

"Don't underestimate them, my Queen."

Velasca turned her pale blue eyes towards him. Her hand reached out to run through his hair, then gently slipped over his ear. "Why, Theodorus, it does sound like you're having doubts." Her fingers pinched the silver earring he wore, and tugged harshly. His teeth grit and he winced sharply, tilting his head to relieve the pain. "_Never_ doubt me," Velasca snarled. "When they catch up, kill them. Or I will. But we don't stop sacking until we reach Athens."

With a smile, she vanished. Rubbing his ear, Theodorus scanned the terrain, planning the best way to approach so to catch the villagers unsuspecting.

Not that it would make any difference to the outcome. At least, if they had enough of a lead.

* * *

Focus.

Her breathing was slow and deep, her eyes closed, hands a steeple before her. She could hear the wind in the trees, a snake in the undergrowth. Her ears were her alert to danger, while her mind stayed on the task.

On a branch at eye level in front of Xena, two short fire logs balanced, one atop the other. She could see them clearly in her mind, and then, only the top one, standing on the branch. Visualize one state, then the other. Move between them.

A last breath, drawn deep for a fierce battle cry, and Xena sprang into the air, twisting like a top, one leg kicking. As she reached the proper height, her foot swept the bottom log away, and straight down fell the other, in perfect balance. She hit the ground in position neutral, hands once more centered.

There was a clapping from above and behind her.

Xena spun, sword immediately in hand. She saw Callisto twenty feet up in the air, perched on a branch like an owl. "Well done," the warrior said.

"Thank you," Xena pursed her lips.

Callisto twisted to the side, facing the tree trunk, and bent lithely over backwards, to her hands, then her feet, and over again. When the branch began to bend she neatly flipped to another, lower down, still rolling, and lastly, hands tucked by her side, landed gracefully before the Warrior Princess. "It's good to have focus," Callisto said. "But your hearing could use a little work." She winked. "I've noticed that over the years."

Xena turned away. "I'm sure you have." She picked up the fallen log, tossed it gently in the air and split it lengthwise with a quick stroke of her sword.

"And you could use a little more acrobatics to your fighting style."

Xena put away her weapon. "We're not duplicates, Callisto. I can live with the differences."

Callisto cocked her head. "Oh, you're right, we aren't the same. You have strength," she said, "I have speed."

Xena looked back at her, raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm slow?"

Callisto smiled. "I think I'm faster."

"I think we should get going," Gabrielle said, coming through the trees. "If you two are through showing off for each other, we have an army to catch. Iolaus thinks they've turned south again."

Xena frowned. "We weren't—"

"Oh please," Gabrielle cut her off. "Let's just go?" She turned away and started off.

Xena looked at Callisto, who was smiling wryly. She bowed, gesturing forward with her hand graciously. "After you?"

* * *

There was a fire and spreading bruise over Iolaus' rib cage where he had been repeatedly kicked. Then Xena's well-timed punch to the back of his opponent's head as she passed gave Iolaus the break he needed to take the man down. Which he did.

Trails of smoke curling up into the sky had been the first warning. With hooves kicking the dust to ground-hugging clouds, the four had pounded up the crude road and into the sounds of conflict. At first it appeared they had missed the brunt of the battle; there were only a few warriors and villagers still clashing, far less than could account even for the group encountered in the woods the previous day, much less Theodorus' entire army. It was only as they descended from the horses, weapons at the ready, that the ruse was revealed. From within the huts and houses poured more than two hundred soldiers at the ready.

There was never a request for surrender. After all, Theodorus was hardly likely to capitulate without a fight.

With a simultaneous war screech and "Aiyiyiyiyiyiyi!" the battle was on. With a flick of her wrist, Callisto sent her sword sailing end over end into the chest of an oncoming warrior. She ran towards him and, as she passed, yanked out the blade and kept moving, its crimson-slick surface slicing and spinning through armor and limbs. It was like a dance she performed, twisting away from blows at the last minute, vaulting and somersaulting through a sea of bodies.

Xena preferred to wait for the oncoming tide, and make a breach with the shear force of her strength. A long, vicious slash turned aside her first two attackers, a third just behind was downed when her palm smashed his nose flat against his face. From then she drove forward like a wedge, fists and sword pummeling men back in twos. The sliver made by Callisto's dash was pushed wide open by Xena's attack and, to her sides, that of Gabrielle and Iolaus. 

Xena slammed her opponents back with a rain of blows; Callisto made hers miss and then caught them off balance. Together they were wreaking havoc.

The concerted attack against them divided and scattered, but did not cease. By pulling back slightly, Theodorus' men drew Gabrielle and Iolaus away from Xena and each other. It was a good strategy, allowing each to be surrounded rather than having a common rear guard.

Though weaponless, Iolaus held his own for a while. Years of fighting alongside Hercules taught him the art of momentum. He could dodge so well as to pit his opponents against one another with grace and ease. A shoulder throw here, a knee kicked out there... Iolaus landed a stiff punch to a solar plexus and doubled an enemy over, then, grabbing the man by the back of his armor, drove his head into the breastplate of an ally, bringing both down. A lucky blow brought Iolaus to his knees until Xena moved to help.

Gabrielle's arms, toned well since her days in Poteidaia, powered her staff into more stomachs, throats, groins and foreheads than she could count. With warriors all about, she found taking out more than one with each swing almost impossible to avoid. But though she had plenty of skill and practice, Gabrielle did not have, like the others, years of experience fighting odds that at some points were ten to one. The accumulation of fatigue and opponents' blows took their toll. Knocked backwards by a powerful hit, her legs gave out as she stumbled, her staff skittering away. For a moment the bard thought she saw death in the oncoming downstroke of a two-handed sword. But at the last second there came a blur from the corner of her eye and both feet of a flying woman warrior caught Gabrielle's would-be executioner full in the chest as she vaulted by. Gabrielle smiled up into the blue eyes of her rescuer — but found them a bewitching brown instead. Flashing the same intoxicating grin the bard had seen so often from her partner, Callisto held out the staff she had pivoted upon to Gabrielle. "Lose something?" Callisto teased. Grabbing hold with both hands, Gabrielle let Callisto pull her to her feet. Then, with a series of backflips, the blonde warrior was back off into the fray.

Invigorated by the four warriors' assistance, the villagers were making a renewed fight to preserve their home. After long moments of doubt, the tide of the battle was beginning to change. Energized, Callisto made a sharp whistle and a dash for Whirlwind as the mare came at her call. Vaulting astride, she wheeled and charged and stomped into the throng of dark warriors like vengeance personified.

Xena spotted her hellion's attack — and the three soldiers on horseback racing towards her. "Callisto!" she called, and launched her chakram. Bouncing off half a dozen skulls on its way in, Callisto timed her catch perfectly, passing the weapon behind her back to her other hand and in one fluid motion sent the weapon on a deadly-accurate return arc, felling all three of the mounted warriors and at least a half dozen more before slipping back into the Warrior Princess' grip. With a shared nod and smile, Callisto wheeled her horse and charged at a group of soldiers beating back a farmer desperately set on protecting his elderly neighbor, wife and children trapped in their hovel behind him. With her legs alone, Callisto walked the horse between two warriors and, grabbing them by their collars with either hand, yanked them backwards then kicked them each in the face. She winked at the farmer as she turned on the others and scattered them with only a fierce battle cry.

From across the village square came the sounds of more horses. Callisto looked around and spotted six mounted soldiers thirty yards away, lined up in a wall. Behind the wall, also astride his warhorse, was Theodorus.

"Afraid to face me alone?" Callisto called out to him.

Theodorus smiled. "Don't let them stop you," he gestured to his guard.

"All right, we won't," came a voice from beside her. Turning her head, Callisto met the blue eyes of her new ally, riding up on Argo. They shared a quick moment in that glance that spoke volumes, then a nod. The grin they each wore made Theodorus' vanish.

"_Yah_!" they called out together, and charged, dark warrior, light horse, and the reverse, two very deadly swords at the ready.

The horses of the six were smarter than their riders, and tried to break and run. Forced to obey with spurs and gripped reins, still they fought, and their skittishness proved fatal error to the first two the charging pair reached, blown out of their saddles as from a strong wind. Wheeling and struggling, not one of the horsemen lasted the furious onslaught of Xena and Callisto's attack for longer than the third pass. As Xena threatened and challenged the fallen riders, Callisto turned Whirlwind to face her lieutenant from another life. Even then he was a strong fighter. This would not be easy.

Her charge never reached him though. As Theodorus stood his ground with strange passivity, Callisto felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. With swift, wide-eyed recognition, she reigned Whirlwind back just in time for the lightning bolt to miss and strike not a dozen feet in front of her. In the booming blast of thunder and cloud of raised dust, an athletic figure appeared.

"Ah, the great Callisto," Velasca intoned.

Callisto glared, then glanced behind her. "How 'bout that, Xena, she knows me this time."

"You were right, Theodorus," Velasca said, "she _is_ a worthy enemy. I haven't seen such a brilliant display of carnage since... well, since me," she grinned wickedly.

"Why thank you," Callisto mockingly half-bowed.

"Of course, you had help," Velasca sneered. "Even our favorite little Amazon Princess held her own."

Callisto shifted Whirlwind sideways, in between Velasca and Gabrielle. Atop Argo behind, Xena did the same.

"What, you think I need to go through you to get to her?" the God of Chaos chuckled.

"Xena," Callisto called back, "get her out of here!"

Velasca waved the thought away. "Oh, if I chose, I could kill her wherever she was. But I have more important things to take care of. When I complete my march on Athens, Ares will be the strongest of all the gods. And little things like Gabrielle aren't of much concern to me until that is finished."

"Then why are you here, Velasca?" Xena called.

"To protect my favorite general," she indicated Theodorus. Then she sneered, "From my least favorite," she stared her blue eyed gaze at Xena, "and her hero lapdog," her eyes landed on Callisto. "The two of you _are_ worthy of my immediate attention."

She held out her hands and lighting flickered from finger to finger. "You know, I guess I started you on your hero's quest, Callisto, when I burned Cirra," her sarcasm made Callisto bristle, "How fitting I should end it as well." She drew back her hand. "Good-bye."

Before she could launch her bolt, there came a yell from one of the nearby huts, and the farmer Callisto had saved came charging forward. "No!" he cried, diving at the goddess, who vanished as his vaulting body neared her, then reappeared a few feet away as he rolled in the dirt.

"You draw a cast of heroes, Callisto," Velasca smiled.

"I just bring out the best in people," Callisto returned.

"And I bring out the end in them." She pointed a finger at the man, now scrambling back to his feet. But then she cocked her head at some unheard sound. Callisto frowned, and took the moment to ride forward and snatch the farmer up onto her saddle, then brought him back towards Xena and Gabrielle.

"Perhaps this is your lucky day," Velasca said, coming out of her funk. "Gather your men, Theodorus!" With a blast of lightning, Velasca disappeared into the sky. The warlord didn't need to be told twice, as he and his men were already heading quickly out of town. 

"What was that about?" Gabrielle asked.

"Let's worry about that later," Callisto said, "Where's Iolaus?" She let the farmer down, then dismounted herself.

"Thank you so much, milady," the burly farmer said. "Twice you saved my life."

"And you saved mine as well," Callisto replied, "Call us even."

"My name is Saer," he smiled a hopeful grin at her.

Gabrielle instantly recognized the mooning look in Saer's eyes. She had to suppress a laugh. Of course, looking at Callisto herself, she couldn't blame him. With the slight sheen of sweat on her skin and the flush of battle-rush to her cheeks, atop the rich brown eyes, the long, silken blonde hair, the perfectly sculpted body... Callisto was a ravishing beauty.

"I still owe you, milady."

Xena spotted Iolaus approaching. She dismounted, and with Gabrielle started off to meet him.

Callisto touched the farmer's arm, her voice patient. "No, Saer, that's not necessary. Right now I need to talk with my friends."

He stood still as she turned away, delighted that the beauty had deigned to touch him.

Callisto caught up with Xena and Gabrielle. "Does that happen to you as often as it happens to me?" she asked the Warrior Princess.

Xena only smirked. Gabby leaned around her. "Yes," she said.

"Must be the leather," Callisto shook her head.

"You could wear chain mail," Xena said dryly.

Iolaus winced a little as he approached them. "Are you all right?" Callisto rushed to his side, concern heavy in her voice.

"I'll live," he said as she ran her hand over his bruised ribs. "His army is growing."

"Yes," Xena agreed, "and this wasn't all of it, either. As we came in I saw lots of dust rising from farther up the road. Most of it had already moved on."

Saer, still trailing and now in earshot, trotted to catch up. "Milady," he said to Callisto, "I think it's worse than that. I heard some of the soldiers talking while they were waiting to ambush you. They said at least ten thousand more were joining their ranks farther south, near Pharsalus."

There was a shocked moment of silence. "We need reinforcements," Xena said.

"And how," Gabrielle agreed.

Iolaus touched Callisto's arm. "I know where to get some. But I'll need to move fast to get there."

Callisto met his eyes and shared his thoughts. "Go," she nodded. "You can take Whirlwind."

Xena shook her head. "We can't keep up with Theodorus on just one horse."

Saer cleared his throat. "Uhm... there are some horses over there that I think you could use." His blood-stained hand pointed at some of the war-horses whose riders, no longer breathing, had no more use for them.

"Thanks, Saer," Callisto said. "Good thinking." His ragged smile beamed at her.

"Stay close to them," Iolaus clasped Callisto's shoulder as the four reached the horses. "But don't you dare get in their way. If you're not around when I get back..." he couldn't finish.

"I know," she said, and hugged him tightly. "I'll be careful."

He mounted. "See you soon," he told them all, and received a round of forced smiles.

A distance behind and unobserved, Saer looked on with a sly grin. The guise faded, and, Ares, God of War, stood there instead. "Get plenty of reinforcements, Iolaus," he laughed, "I want it to be a glorious battle."


	12. The Cycle of Hate

XII: The Cycle of Hate 

The night's dinner was the last of the roasted boar, as no one had felt much like hunting. Tracking while avoiding, the three camped on a hillside above a steep, tree-filled valley with the army they followed down below. Not an hour before nightfall they had passed a ruined Temple of Artemis, towers crumbling, walls scorched in a pattern very familiar to them. Its presence was like a veiled threat.

Callisto tossed the remains of a chop into the fire and sat back, licking her fingers. The worry was infectious. Even Gabrielle had been silent most of the day. Callisto hoped the horse Iolaus had taken was swift.

Xena reached out with her hunting knife to cut another slab of meat from the hock that was warming there. She winced almost imperceptibly, but Callisto could see through the feigned toughness.

"How's your shoulder?" Callisto asked. 

Xena froze, caught. "It's fine," she dismissed, going back to eating.

Callisto cocked her head, rinsing her hands with her waterskin. "I know you hurt it." She stood. "Here, let me look." 

She walked over to Xena, stood behind her. Xena tried to shake her off, "I'm fine, honestly." Gabrielle, frowning, stepped over beside Callisto as she managed to slip Xena's shoulder strap aside, exposing an ugly gash.

"Hmm, that's a nice one," Callisto said.

"I sat behind her on a horse all day and didn't notice that?" the bard said, incredulous.

"Your partner's a tough character," Callisto half-smiled. "There's some clean cloth in my saddlebag, a skin of ointment, and a pouch of willow bark. Can you get them for me?"

"Sure."

"It's not that bad," Xena said over her shoulder as Gabrielle retrieved the supplies.

"Leave it like this and it could get that way. You know, you don't have to be tough all the time, Xena."

Gabrielle handed over Callisto's things. The warrior slipped a piece of bark out of the pouch, and handed it to Xena. "Here, chew on this."

Xena frowned. "Why?"

Callisto dipped a cloth in the pot of water perched over the fire. "Just do it. It's for the pain you're pretending not to have." She began to cleanse the wound. Xena grit her teeth, but uttered no sound. "You're like fath— Hercules. You fight with your strength, taking the hits. I bet you get a dozen bruises and scrapes a day."

"Yes, she does," Gabrielle nodded.

Xena frowned at the bard, then winced the tiniest bit as the ointment, a pungent red paste, was applied.

A wistful smile touched Callisto's lips as she continued her ministrations. "Deianeira would get so annoyed at him she'd refuse to patch him up and make me do it." She chuckled, remembering. "She'd say I had more patience for him than she did." Her smile faded a little then. "But the truth is, all the patience I have I learned from her."

Xena sighed. Callisto's touch was soft. One more thing that her instincts rebelled against, letting Callisto touch her like this, or even get this close. She could barely fit the idea of Callisto in Hercules' home into her mind; accepting it in her heart seemed impossible. She shook her head.

"What?" Callisto asked.

Xena stared into the fire. "I'm still trying to get used to this. It's not easy."

Callisto tilted her head, looking at the Warrior Princess's profile. "You love him, don't you?"

She said nothing.

"He has that effect." Her binding complete, Callisto slipped Xena's shoulder strap back in place. "There..." she smoothed Xena's hair with a palm gently, "all done."

Xena turned her head at the tender caress, but Callisto was already at her horse, putting away her supplies.

"There's a lot of things I'm having to get used to," Gabrielle said, sitting back by the fire. "Like knowing I could be a target again. I didn't like it the first time, and don't now."

"That's not going to happen, Gabrielle," Xena said, leaning forward to touch the bard's knee. "We won't let it."

Callisto slowed as she approached the fire. She had the strongest, warmest feeling that "we" included her.

Gabrielle nodded. "I only knew her for a couple of days, really, but it was nice when she was gone."

Callisto felt chilled at the mention of Velasca, but tried to push it aside. She forced a half-smile as she sat. "Me too, I suppose."

"That... is entirely different," Gabrielle said, meeting her eyes.

Xena wiped off her hunting knife. "I guess I can second that." She looked up. "It's nice to have your skills at hand when I think about going up against that army."

"We should have reinforcements soon," Callisto said, "And that will be nice too."

"Do you think it's true? Do you think there are ten thousand men joining Theodorus' army?" Gabrielle asked.

Callisto and Xena shared a look. "Theodorus couldn't gather that many," Callisto said. "But I think Velasca could."

Xena nodded slowly. "From what we know, and what Iolaus has told us, Velasca commanded an army close to the size of the one I used to. It's like Callisto's wish split my legion down the center, in all its glorious horror."

"And her half destroyed Cirra," Gabrielle added.

Callisto stood abruptly and walked away from the fire. Frowning, Gabrielle stood and followed her into the trees. She caught up with the blonde warrior at the edge of the hillside, where the moon turned the valley beyond to shadows and silver.

"Callisto... I'm sorry," the bard said quietly. "And Xena didn't mean—"

"—that it was my fault," Callisto shook her head, eyes on the moon. "I know that. It's Ares doing, all of it." She sighed. "He sure twisted my words around. Or got Artemis to." Her jaw hardened, but Gabrielle could see a reflection in her eyes, like tears held there against their will, unable to fall. "But I'll get to him, after I'm through with Velasca."

Gabrielle took Callisto by her arms, forcing her to face the bard. "Callisto, no. You have another chance. You heard what the Fates said: you haven't been poisoned by revenge here. Don't fall into the cycle of hate now."

Callisto bowed her head. Gabrielle searched her face. "I know she has to be stopped," the bard said. "But don't let this get personal. Don't let yourself be destroyed by her. Because then, she would win."

Two of the brimming tears escaped, shining trails in the moonlight.

"I know this is hard," Gabrielle said, "I can't imagine how it must feel."

Callisto looked up. "Can't you? She killed Perdicus here, Gabrielle." Her jaw trembled with anger and sorrow. "For that alone I want her dead."

Tears welled in Gabrielle's own eyes. "I know," her voice caught. "I have known. But think what you have been through. In— in that other world, you suffered so terribly, and without love, you became a monster. But here," she laid a hand along Callisto's cheek, "you had love, and it healed you. Even when you lost almost everything again, that love you grew up on prevailed. You fought, but _for_ love, _with_ love, not against it."

Gabrielle's voice was low, but full of warmth and admiration. "Callisto... here, now, you are the strongest person I have ever known."

Callisto wrapped Gabrielle tightly in her embrace. "I don't know about that," she said into the bard's strawberry hair. "But I know she will never get to us again. She will never hurt the people I love again. No matter what it takes."

"It takes love and strength, Callisto. That's all."

The warrior pulled back to match brown eyes to green. "Then she's a goner, because I have plenty of those around me." And they shared a tearful laugh under the moonlight.

* * *

Stark black against the gray stone, the scorch marks were visible from a fair distance. Bodies of the worshippers crushed beneath the crumbling walls, the splintering pillars. The other bodies, blown to little pieces by the bolts themselves.

Orange flames whipping from house to house, tortured screams and the smell of burning flesh, Mama's pained cries, the rider so close but hearing none of it.

The army of darkness, Theodorus at its head, crushing town after town; and then, at its moment of judgment, the forces of light aligned before it — sweeping away all the ranks opposed with the power of its evil god, throwing thunder and wind in its path.

She saw the blue eyes boring into her heart, standing just yards away. She could hear the crackling of sparks flowing from finger to finger, gathering strength at Velasca's will, feel the hair stand up on her own arms. No rescue this time... she felt the blast of energy slam her backwards from the saddle, eating away the flesh from her ribs and exposing her heart to the air even as her body fell through it to crush lifeless to the earth.

Xena and Gabrielle exposed, blue bolts coming from all sides, no escape, then searing the skin from their bones—

—Callisto sat up with a start, body drenched in sweat. The fire was low, but still burning. Pale light painted the treetops. The others lay unmoving on the bedrolls. Callisto steadied her breathing, then climbed silently to her feet.

She cat-stepped past the Warrior Princess to Gabrielle's side. Kneeling down, Callisto watched her in the fading firelight. There was a dark line behind her ear where flame turned to moon and her hair became silver from gold. Callisto touched it, feather-soft, with her fingertips. How could the warrior have been so cursed to be fighting murderers, while death, unseen behind her, was slipping into her home? This should be Ilea lying here, in her care, not so far off in the ground.

Oh, sweet child, Gabrielle. Callisto could not sort out all the feelings. She knew that, in some fate, it was her own sword, not Velasca's, who had cut poor Perdicus open. That his blood washed over her hands, not those stained with Mama's. The feeling — the enjoyment — was in her heart, somewhere, and she loathed it.

So it was in some fate, but not this one. 

Gabrielle, how I could love you. You are so pure. I don't know if Xena deserves you, but I never could.

And how can I possibly protect you? Even with the reinforcements Iolaus will bring, how can we face the army of a god...

...without one of our own?

With her eyes shadowed from the fire, Xena watched Callisto in silence as the blonde warrior secured her bridle and mounted her horse. Waiting as long as she dared, she slipped from her bed and, with a look behind at Gabrielle, urged Argo to follow.

* * *

The moonlight was almost worse than darkness, as it ruined her vision stepping from light into the inky shadows around the battered temple. Scattered rays through the broken roof lit the sanctuary piecemeal, and with great caution Callisto stepped through the bricks and boulders to the step before the altar.

Her voice was soft, yet echoed in the stillness. "In my old life, I never prayed. I never thought about the gods. I never thought about anything but vengeance against Xena. That life was so simple. I didn't realize until now, how empty it was as well."

She looked at the soiled fineries around her, torn tapestries, smashed statues. "What have I gotten myself into? Gotten all of us into? Did I give up the hatred and the vengeance for this? Is this my end of the exchange?

"Our fates are tied together, Artemis, yours and mine," she said to the moonlight. "I became your tool, and carried out your dirty work. Now, I need your help. Don't let these lives, this love, be in vain."

"How little you understood what you wished for, when you wished it," came a voice from within the light before her. "Did you think that love was as simple as hate? No, it is far more work."

Callisto blinked and tried to focus on the slender figure. "I don't need a lecture, Artemis. I need your help."

"What love builds is far stronger than hate. You don't need me. You have all you need."

Callisto held up her hands. "You stand here in your vanquished temple and deny the power Velasca has?"

The goddess looked around her. "She destroyed the walls. But I am still here. She did not drive me out."

"Our lives are far more fragile than yours."

Artemis stepped forward from one shaft of silver to the next, until she stood directly before Callisto. "Would you sacrifice all you have gained for the lives of your friends?"

Callisto did not bat an eyelash. "What have I really gained if I wouldn't?"

The goddess held out her hand, and within it rest the key to their survival.

* * *

Into the silence of the night came the sound of rushing birds, disturbed from their perches as Xena approached the fallen temple. In the moonlight, she could see their black shadows emerging from the blacker patches in the structure's roof. She could hear, too, the quiet snort of Callisto's horse. Then, just as she was about to make her way within, she saw the blonde warrior emerge herself.

"Finish your business?" Xena asked quietly.

"Yes."

"I just wanted to make sure you were intending to come back."

Callisto's voice had an unusual quality to it that she could not place. "You won't lose me that easily, Xena."

And then, as her face moved from shadow into the light, Xena knew what the difference was. Callisto's soulful dark eyes were now, again, the brightest blue.

The Warrior Princess drew back on instinct, but Callisto's hand lashed out with the speed of a cobra to take her arm in an iron grip. "I can't fight her as a mortal," Callisto said.

Xena struggled to pull away. "So instead you'll fight her as a god, and draw out Ares as well?"

Callisto held her firm. "I have a plan, Xena, if you'll help me. But you have to trust me." She let the wrist go.

She shook out the numbness in her arm. "No, our bargain is finished. You can bring Perdicus back if you want. You have that power again now. It's Gabrielle's happiness that's important, even if it means losing her to him."

Callisto frowned. "That won't happen, Xena. I wouldn't do that to you."

"To me?" Xena's voice was sarcastic. "I thought _she_ was your new best friend, Callisto."

The goddess cocked her head. "Jealousy doesn't look good on you, Xena."

"I'm not jealous!" Xena protested.

Callisto looked back the way they had come, as though she could see all the way to the camp. "So you're just going to run, then."

"You'd rather I brought her into harm's way?"

"If you go, I'll cover you as best as I can," Callisto said. "But Xena, if I fail, Velasca will find her anyway. The only safe place on Earth for Gabrielle right now is by my side."

The Warrior Princess tried to think of an argument, but there was none. Despite her deepest wishes, Callisto was right. Xena looked back at the face of the goddess, anxious and yet, somehow, radiant.

"Tell me about this plan."


	13. God of Chaos

XIII: God of Chaos 

Callisto had never before moved as carefully as she did in the unnatural cage of briars. One scratch could mean her death; she had seen death as a mortal, and had no desire to find out what it meant for a god. The woods seemed eerie to her, but she passed that off as her imagination. She didn't like to be this close to a temple of Ares.

It also occurred to her that there was something morbid about collecting the dried blood of her father's dead second wife, one she had never even met. Then she had to laugh; the old Callisto wouldn't have blinked at this, yet now she found it gruesome. Vengeance leaves no room for conscience.

It crossed Callisto's mind more than once, as she examined each thorn for dark crimson, that there should be some guard here, something to prevent just what she was planning. Ares had trapped the last Golden Hind here in this cage, spilling her blood, a god's only poison, on the thorns as he warned her from Hercules, the man she loved. Then he gave the bloodied thorns to his archers to try to kill his half-brother. How could the other gods allow this thicket to remain, dangerous as it was to them? As it were, she could only find two stained thistles, but she could not be sure that was all that were left.

Clipping those and securing them in a thick leather pouch, Callisto decided that if Ares was watching, so be it. Let him try to prevent what was coming.

* * *

Her eyes opened with grim reluctance, and Gabrielle clung desperately to the feeling of her dream even as it slipped away. She felt a strange sadness envelope her, as powerful as the happiness in the dream itself.

The details were fading, but she and Xena and Callisto had been traveling together. There was no Velasca; there was no Ares to fight. Small adventures stretched before and behind them, an endless trail of stories, but nothing had come between their camaraderie... not even the past. Gabrielle thought that old mistrusts would pull them apart, but it wasn't like that at all. She felt safe, as she had with Xena alone, but more than that, Xena seemed truly happy, more completely happy than Gabrielle had ever seen her. Rather than being bothered by Callisto's presence, instead Xena could relate to the other warrior as she never could with Gabrielle. But Gabrielle was not excluded. The three of them completed each other, like colors in a picture, or threads in a rope.

And then came the sun into her eyes, and consciousness overtook her. It pushed away that feeling with the sleep, and the bard clutched out to pull it back like a child would a favorite doll. If only they could get past this now, the coming showdown against the God of Chaos, perhaps the dream could become reality.

Gabrielle blinked against the sun. Xena sat beside the fire, adjusting the string on a weapon the bard had never seen before, a small, single-hand crossbow.

"'Morning," she said sleepily.

"Sleep well?" Xena asked, eyes intent on her work.

"Didn't want to wake up."

The hint of a smile touched the Warrior Princess' lips. "When do you ever?"

"Where's Callisto?" Gabrielle asked, looking around the otherwise empty camp.

Xena pulled the trigger, watching the snap of the cord with interest. "She'll be along."

"What is it with you warriors? You all get up an hour before dawn."

Her jaw had a hard set to it. "Battles start at first light," Xena said. "But I don't think Callisto slept last night."

Gabrielle shook her head, starting to close up her bedroll. "I worry about her."

Xena turned a scathing look on the bard. "Oh that's just perfect."

"What?" Gabrielle cocked her head.

"_You're_ worried about _her_. Callisto's the one who got us into all this... her life is all wine and roses and hero worship and _you_ are worried about _her_."

Gabrielle stood, hands on her hips. "You know Xena, you're right. I shouldn't be worried about her. I should be worried about you." She stepped towards the Warrior Princess. "I told Callisto that since the temple of the Fates nothing seemed to have changed in my memories of us, but I was wrong. You've changed. I used to think you'd come so far, but I'm not sure anymore. Callisto has done everything to earn our faith, but you won't accept that. You refuse to trust her."

"Gabrielle, you know all she's done. How can you forget it?"

"Because it never happened, Xena. This is not that Callisto. And if you can't believe that, then you're not the person I thought you were."

Xena looked at the small bow in her hand, and was silent for a minute before answering. "Maybe you're right. But maybe neither of us are really those people, Gabrielle. Callisto was a part of my past, maybe a reminder that I needed. Here, she isn't... and maybe I've been wanting her to be." She turned to look at the young woman. "And maybe here, I'm not the one you should be with."

Gabrielle thought on that, but her answer was cut off by a gust of wind that turned her head, and then a sight that caught her eye and stilled her heart: the towering figure of Callisto on Whirlwind, racing out of the brush in silence, the lick of flames around the horse's hooves and nostrils again, and eyes of piercing blue in a face both from her dream and not.

She reined up. "Theodorus is on the move. He's already sent scouts ahead and the army he's meeting is closing on Pharsalus."

Xena stood. "Our reinforcements?"

"Still hours away," the goddess shook her head.

"Can't you do something?"

"I'm helping all I can... They should be days away. But there's only so much I can do."

Xena frowned. "We can't go against Theodorus' army alone."

"We can try cutting them off, diverting them. I can't allow them to take Pharsalus... there's too many lives at stake."

Gabrielle was still dumbstruck. "Callisto... how?"

The goddess turned a worried but hopeful face to her. "I'll explain, Gabriangel. For now," she held out her hand, leaning down, "do you trust me?"

The bard looked at the hand, then the horse, then the eyes. Whichever color they were, those eyes, she saw the same soul behind them now as she had the night before. She put her own hand in Callisto's and the warrior lifted her effortlessly to the saddle behind her with a smile.

Xena mounted Argo beside them, and Callisto gestured at the mare's hooves with a hand. Argo pranced restlessly, and Xena had to grip the reins tightly to hold back the sudden overabundant energy in the horse.

Callisto turned her head to Gabrielle with a smile. "Hang on..." she said, and as the bard wrapped her arms tight about Callisto's waist, the goddess snapped the leather and kicked back with her heels. "_Yah_!" she called, and the magical beast beneath them bolted into action, Argo and the Warrior Princess only a step behind.

* * *

Pharsalus lay waiting for her army to devour. Velasca could picture the destruction to come in her mind, and it felt good. The fires, the killing... too long since she had been here. This town needed a reminder of who its master was.

The God of Chaos had been young when her mother had died and Melosa had taken her in. What a horrible experience that had been. Learning so much of the history of the Amazons, how powerful they had been once, and seeing through Melosa's eyes how weak they had become. Velasca, with her young ideas and energy, had always pressed the Amazon Queen to fight to return to the old ways, the conquering ways. But Melosa was a fool.

No one had ever been exiled so young as she had been. And it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Out in the world, fending for herself, she could stop worrying about her nation's destiny and instead pursue her own. It didn't take long in the world of men for her unique skills of war and pain to gather a following. Velasca heard, of course, of that other woman warrior, Xena of Amphipolis, and her massive army. With the young Warrior Princess as her idol, Velasca followed the same path.

Those paths led to an inevitable crossing, here in Pharsalus.

At the meeting of two trade routes, Pharsalus was a prize. As Velasca's army approached, her informants told her that Xena's army had already demanded the city's tribute. The exiled Amazon would not give up so easily, however. Though larger than her own, Xena's force had one weakness — the thinnest veneer of honor. Xena would not kill women and children. So in a move that would make her name legendary, Velasca sent word to the rulers of Pharsalus that if _she_ was not given the town's tribute, Pharsalus would not only be pillaged, it would be razed. As a demonstration, she sacked, burned and erased a small village nearby, by the name of Cirra.

Pharsalus paid its tribute, and to Velasca. Then Velasca led her army into the town anyway, and holding the town leaders captive, used the city's defenses to stave off the attack Xena made against it, and her, when the Warrior Princess learned of the duplicity. Eventually Xena's forces retreated, with their reputation forever diminished, and Velasca's name soon to be a household word.

Somehow, though, in the long run, it was a hollow victory. She had become wealthy as well as feared, as her army moved from town to town, its notoriety alone enough to win many of its battles. But there were defeats as well.

She made an elegant dance with the forces of Xena, each picking their targets carefully, but rarely coming close to one another out in the open. Still, the Warrior Princess would never go away, and there were few times one was mentioned without the other more than a sentence behind. Never was Velasca thought of alone, and it grated on her.

Velasca forged a brief alliance with Hera, thinking it might lead to fame denied in what she had with Ares. But that lead only to new enemies, the sanctimonious Hercules, and, worst of all, his selfless and seemingly amaranthine daughter, Callisto. The last daughter of Cirra, cheating Hades again when the rest of Hercules' family died. How often had Velasca heard of Callisto's heroic deeds, upsetting this warlord and that evil king. With Hercules or alone. Velasca detested the mention of Callisto's name, would kill even her own soldiers if they spoke it aloud.

And now, it seemed that even Xena herself was moved by the stories; the second time Velasca had met the Warrior Princess since her "redemption", whose company was she in?

Full circle, wasn't it, that meeting in Maelon? In so many ways. Velasca had made Callisto, long ago. Now Callisto had joined her other great enemy, and— the absent Amazon Queen.

As despised as she was by them, Velasca had given up everything, her army, her fortune, when she heard Melosa was dead. At last, she thought, this was her chance to bring what was left of the Amazons back to some semblance of their former glory. She was exchanging everything in her life for them. Surely they could see that.

But they could not. Instead of granting her the mask, it was passed instead to the impostor Gabrielle. She was not of the bloodline, she was not of the community... even Xena would have been a better choice, had she been alive. But the Amazons rejected Velasca's request, at the forfeit of their own lives, and Gabrielle had worn the mask, defended, upon her untimely resurrection, by the Warrior Princess herself.

Yet it was not a total loss. Velasca had not put aside the pleasures of war for nothing. Gabrielle's own quest for her partner's life had seen to that. Velasca had actually exchanged her infamous career for something she had longest desired: a name of her own. Velasca was now the God of Chaos, and after this, her greatest campaign, even as a minion of Ares, when people spoke her name their voices would tremble in fear, as with no other.

And now that campaign brought her back to Pharsalus. So it was fitting to know that following her now was her golden triumvirate, whose lives were also tied to this place, and to her. Prepare yourself, town at the crossroads. Your master has returned. 

* * *

The city had looked different to Xena, as they rode up to it, than it had just days before as they left. It was constant vertigo, the way her memories were adjusting. Perhaps it was that this time they rode up in daylight, and before had been under the cover of night, but the sight of the city's walls and towers rising upwards from the horizon had brought back strange feelings to her. She had sat out here before, on horseback, and she had led men beyond them, to their deaths. Aside perhaps from Caesar, this had been her greatest defeat. One she had never repeated.

"We do not have the numbers to replay Velasca's victory here," the militia captain argued. "She had thousands at her command, to your thousands, Xena."

The Warrior Princess shook her head. "We don't need to defeat them, only divert them."

Callisto nodded, leaning over the map spread out on the table before them. She was glad Gabrielle had taken the aldermen outside the council chambers. Politicians rarely knew enough about tactics to be useful, but never lacked a vocal opinion about the subject. As difficult as it had been to convince the city leaders to accept the help of a woman who had once besieged them and demanded tribute, it would have been impossible to assuage their fears if they learned how tentative their position really was, even though they _did_ trust Callisto, at least.

"If we can lead as many as possible into the cul-de-sacs here," she pointed, "here, and here, we can convince them it is unwise to stop here on their journey. And before they make it to the next city, our reinforcements will have arrived." If there was one thing her old life still gave Callisto, it was an intimate knowledge of Xena's war strategies. It made them nicely complimentary leaders.

"Pharsalus is a well-built city," Xena agreed. "That's why it's rarely needed more than the few hundred militia men you command to defend it."

The captain was still skeptical. "So why would Theodorus — and Velasca — attempt to attack here in the first place?"

"Because Velasca is arrogant," the dark-haired woman said. "She thinks she knows the defenses you will throw up against them and be able to inform Theodorus how to get around them."

"And," Callisto added, "because she thinks we are still behind them, not already here."

The captain thought on that a moment. "Then she's in for the surprise of her life."

The blonde goddess gripped the leather pouch at her belt. "Or of her afterlife," she said.

* * *

Word from Balthus was that his men were still an hour's ride east. Theodorus pondered the news as he pondered the battlements around Pharsalus. If he attacked now, he'd have to make do with the two thousand already here. His gut said to wait; he'd already been given the news that the city's gates were closed and bolted. Pharsalus was a trading town and closed for nothing — meaning they'd already heard he was coming. Another hour and it wouldn't make any difference, Pharsalus would fall before twelve thousand, but only two against its militia and battlements was a risk.

Velasca did not want him to wait, though, and he made a point of not crossing Velasca.

Xena's mistake had been not knowing the layout of Pharsalus well enough. That would not be his error. Theodorus had had scouts making maps of towns from here to Athens for weeks. On top of that, he had scouts within the town even now. By the time he reached the main gate with the brunt of his forces, he fully expected it to be open.

Which it was. With the power of two thousand soldiers, ten thousand more an hour away, and the wind of Velasca at his back, Theodorus' legion poured through the entranceway to Tartarus on Earth.

* * *

Argo felt especially spry beneath Xena as the warrior wheeled her in and amongst the confused soldiers of the attacking army, this one of the many splintered bands lost in the labyrinth they had made of Pharsalus' streets. With Callisto, the quintessential study of not only Velasca's tactics but Theodorus' as well — one from this life and the other the last — on her side, the few hundred militiamen Xena led were proving more than enough.

Callisto had predicted Theodorus' plan to open the gates from within. As it was, none of his agents had gotten near the gates. Xena had opened them herself.

As the army muscled through the breach, the militia captain gave the order to retreat, and his forces split and ran in several directions. As expected, so did the attackers. Leading the charge, Calamus, one of Theodorus' lieutenants, ordered his men to pursue. With the maps drilled into his head, he called directions to his soldiers from atop his horse, riding alongside, sword ready and heart pounding. As he saw retreating backs turn down a main road Calamus sent the largest portion down a narrow alley to cut them off, knowing the road would double back.

Calamus did not know that the map in his head was wrong that day.

As the squadron emerged from the alley they found not the main road but only another alley, and following it, a dead end. As they began to turn back, Calamus saw two things before he died: the raven-haired Warrior Princess he'd been informed was still miles north of Pharsalus, and something that made even less sense, that he and his men were not in an alley at all. In fact, on all four sides were, impossibly, connected buildings, with no exit. Before he could make the slightest explanation of it, Xena had sliced open his chest from right soldier to left hip.

Once her band had disposed of the trapped attackers, Xena led them back through the mirage and towards another deluded splinter.

* * *

Callisto stood atop the wall walk behind the parapet, anxiety writ across her face. Her fingers kept toying with the hand-crossbow at her belt. She watched the force continue to enter from the plain beyond through the nearby gate into the city. A small portion of her thoughts maintained the illusory walls among the streets behind her, but most were directed at watching and feeling for Velasca's presence. Callisto knew that once she realized Theodorus' attack was going horribly wrong, the God of Chaos would show herself. Then the real fireworks would begin.

* * *

The Warrior Princess would have shared Callisto's edginess if the pulse-pounding of battle lust was not in her head. Combat had been in Xena's life every day since Cortese had come to Amphipolis. It was part of her soul now, from the bruises and sweat to the strategy and give-and-take. Life decided in split seconds. Nations rising or falling in the game of planning and the immediacy of will.

Xena drove a hard charge past the city's main gate once again. Glancing by as she passed, she saw Theodorus guiding the stream of soldiers, shouting commands and consulting lieutenants. He looked uncomfortable. Xena knew how he felt; Theodorus was a warrior first, and he'd far prefer to be smashing heads than giving orders.

Then, as Argo pounded into another cul-de-sac and Xena sent a helmet flying with a kick and chopped short a pike with a sword blow, she realized that she knew _exactly_ how Theodorus felt. She empathized with him, and it scared her. To lead a powerful army against a helpless town, claiming booty or cutting down its defenses; smell the smoke and shed blood; get drunk nightly and share the bawdy jokes with other soldiers about the campfire; watch underlings jump at your orders and cower beneath your rages, always knowing that in the next town could be your demise. For a second Xena thought it was another trick of Callisto's, this burning within, as in that illusory moment before a frozen Perdicus in that other life. But it was not.

Something strong within Xena found the memories of that life she had led warm and happy ones. She did not know if it was the Fates' doing, that maybe here she had not changed so much, just as Gabrielle had said. It did not matter. That part of her was strong _now_, for whatever reason. And she wasn't so sure how long she could fight it.

* * *

Theodorus struggled to keep from striking Talen as the lieutenant told him of the mayhem beyond the city walls. If they could not win here, what hope did they have against Athens, even with ten times the force?

"Somehow the maps we had are no good, sir," Talen spoke heavily. "There are buildings where there should be roads and walls where markets should be... it's like a maze."

Yet another messenger pushed his way close to the general amidst the throng already there.

"I want word to all the commanders," Theodorus ordered, "no pursuit. If they want to run, let them run. We'll take what they give us for now, until the reinforcements arrive."

"Sir—" the messenger spoke up, but Talen cut him off.

"We can try pulling back and shoring up, but it seems like each move we make, Xena is already ahead of us."

"General—" again the messenger, a tired young man on a sweating horse, tried.

"Xena?" Theodorus frowned more deeply. "The Warrior Princess cannot be here yet."

"She is, sir," Alteus, another commander, replied. "I have seen her myself. She killed Calamus."

"And Callisto?" Theodorus absently touched the scar on his chest.

The round of soldiers shook their heads.

"If Xena is here, then Callisto is too." He thought for a moment. "My order stands. Pull back nearer the gate, and hold until Balthus arrives."

The messenger cleared his throat. "General, I have news from Balthus. They have been delayed."

"How long?"

"Three hours, maybe longer," the young man answered. "Stormy weather is bogging them down."

"We won't survive three hours in there," Alteus said.

"Not with Callisto and Xena leading the charge," Theodorus agreed. "Signal the retreat. We'll move on to join Balthus."

The commanders nodded and started off immediately. Theodorus started a mental assessment of the casualties when, turning his horse about, he saw Velasca standing in front of him, blue eyes narrowed.

"Coward! You cannot retreat now!" she ordered.

"You wish to reach Athens?" Theodorus returned. "Then we do not squander our men here."

"I will not let _them_ defeat me!" her mouth twisted in fury.

The warrior gestured at the city walls. "Do you want to fight Xena and Callisto? Or does Ares still have his leash on you?"

With a look that might have killed by itself, Velasca disappeared in a shimmer of light. Swallowing hard, Theodorus began to regroup his forces.

* * *

The first lightning bolt struck as Xena led a chasing force out the city gate. It killed as many of Theodorus' men as militia, and its primary target was quick enough to get out of its way, though the blast left her ears ringing.

Before a second could come, a bolt returned from atop the city wall towards the source of the first, high in the air, and as Callisto vanished and reappeared on the ground near her own general, there appeared to be a falling star trailing down from the sky before Velasca regained her bearings and alit in the space her attack had vacated.

"Trying to turn the odds, are you, Velasca?" Callisto said to her enemy. "Or just covering your troops as they run away?"

Velasca smiled. "Oh, you _are_ a worthy opponent, Callisto. I underestimated you."

"Not the best thing to do," Callisto returned, and blasted the ground at Velasca's feet out from under her. The God of Chaos nimbly leapt to the side and rolled, coming up firing. Callisto ducked and the bolt went over her head and harmlessly to the clouds.

Soldiers were running on all sides. Xena ordered her men back to the gate. Gabrielle, bucking the flow, moved along the outside of the city wall for a better view.

"We could play this game all night," Velasca said, firing at Callisto again.

The blonde warrior goddess did her own tuck and roll. "We could..." she called, and let another bolt fly, this one glancing off the God of Chaos' shoulder. "But is this how you want the show to go?"

Velasca appeared almost pained. "How do you mean?"

Callisto's hand touched at the leather bag on her belt, beside the hand-crossbow. A few more well-aimed shots... "I mean, here, with your army running, and me with a fortified city at my back?" But now was not the time, she thought. She needed Ares as well... "I thought you'd rather have it be a fair fight."

Velasca too was scouting for an opening. Callisto was good. If they had both been mortal, the saint would probably have won — which was exactly why Velasca had never allowed that meeting to happen. But Callisto was new at _this_ game. And over by the city wall, she saw her opening.

"Oh, but Callisto, don't you know?" Velasca sneered. "I never fight fair."

With a twitch of her hand, Velasca disappeared. As Callisto was searching with her eyes and feeling with her thoughts, the ground bucked beneath her. She heard the scream as she searched for the source: the ground near the city wall was splitting into giant blocks, each shifting and moving. Callisto could see the dull red of lava pouring out from the gaps as the boulders split and slipped. And there, almost in the middle of them, stood Gabrielle.

Xena had seen Gabrielle too, and was trying to get Argo to head that way, but the mare was instinctively bucking against the commands. As Callisto watched, she felt the hair on her arms stand up, and had to dive to avoid the lighting bolt that came straight down from the sky at her.

The ground-shift was tearing at Pharsalus' walls, and cascading bricks from above became another threat to the bard besides the blazing below. Callisto knew she had the power to end this, to finish Velasca for good, but something stayed her hand. If she didn't act _now_, Gabrielle would be dead. There was no guarantee that Xena would reach her in time. Callisto whistled shrilly.

Gabrielle used her staff for balance and tried to stay away from the lava, but it wasn't easy. The smell of sulfur was making her sick, and every ten seconds what had been horizontal ground was suddenly a steep grade. "Xena!" she called, seeing the Warrior Princess struggling towards her from farther along the wall.

Lightning cracked nearby, and Gabrielle flinched at the flash. Just as she drew back, a large brick passed inches from her nose from above, but she had to pivot on her staff to avoid the lava it splashed up from the fissure beside her rocking block of earth.

More lightning, and closer. As if she didn't have enough to worry about? The bard was slowly making her way out away from the wall and the falling bricks, and to where the splitting ground was less so. Behind her there was a rumbling, and she turned her head slowly. The wall was tilting in a tall column, separated from either side, and the tilting was, to her dismay, directly towards her. She scrambled faster. "Xena!" she called again.

Ten feet more, she said to herself, the rumbling very loud behind and a sulfurous wind blowing over her. The last thing she saw was the flat earth ten feet away become fifty as the ground split yet again, and then a flash of lighting blinded her. She could hear the bricks pelting around her amidst the blast of thunder—

—and then she was lifted by her waist and set atop a driving horse with a familiar arm holding tightly around her. "Hang on!" Callisto yelled over the cacophony.

"I'm not goin' anywhere!" Gabrielle called back, hanging onto the saddle horn, white-knuckled. As her vision came back, she turned her head just as the section of wall smashed to earth, sparks and dust and splashes of lava everywhere. Whirlwind was driving upwards away from it, twenty feet off the ground and rising. Gabrielle felt a prickling on her skin and, turning her head back around, jumped, startled, as a crackle of lightning shot from Callisto's hand into the sky.

"It's all right, Gabrielle," Callisto soothed, "you're safe." Her eyes searched the heavens as they headed back in an arc towards the ground. "She's gone." The cracked ground was settling into place even as they landed. 

Xena was upon them before they had finished dismounting, right in Callisto's face.

"What did you think you were doing? Velasca could have destroyed all of us! You could have finished her!" Xena yelled.

Callisto's face was dark. "It wasn't the right time."

"I thought that was your plan!"

Callisto turned an incredulous look on the general. "I guess you didn't notice I was a little busy!"

"How 'bout next time, I take care of Gabrielle, and _you_ take care of the god, huh?"

Gabrielle turned an angry look on Xena. "I can take care of myself, both of you!" She turned her back, stomping off.

Callisto let out a deep breath. "Gabrielle—" she started after the younger woman, but Xena stopped her with a stiff arm.

"I can handle this," the Warrior Princess said, and followed.

"I hope so," Callisto said to herself.

Xena caught up to the bard. "Gabrielle..."

"You have to start trusting her, Xena."

"I'm trying."

Gabrielle turned to face the warrior. "No you're not. Callisto saved my life back there, Xena. And you question her for it? Me, I'll just stick with a thank you."

Xena bowed her head. Her words came with difficulty. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. I'm grateful she saved you. It's just... Callisto says that I'm jealous of the two of you."

Gabrielle shook her head. "You _are_ jealous, Xena, but not about what we have. You're jealous of what she is. You still think that Callisto is what you used to be. You can't accept that she's actually what you could have been."

Xena met her with troubled eyes.

"I'm gonna go help with the wounded," Gabrielle said, and started back towards the city gate.

* * *

Xena found Callisto inspecting the damage to the city wall, standing beside the crazily tilted earth beyond it. "We'll have to come back to help them repair it," Callisto said.

"Can't you just..." Xena twiddled her fingers at the wall.

Callisto half-smiled. "I'm not that kind of god. Anyway, I'm not that used to my powers yet." She turned and looked across the plain at the dust Theodorus' army was raising in its retreat. "For now, we better get moving. We need to catch up with our reinforcements and work out plans."

Xena nodded. "And we'll need to scout the terrain, figure out where the best place for the battle is, to our advantage."

"Oh, I know where the armies will come together," Callisto shook her head. "I guess I've always known where this has to end."

"Where's that?" Xena asked, but somehow she already knew.

"Cirra," said Callisto in a voice heavy with resignation, and eyes that saw beyond the world. "We'll meet again in Cirra."


	14. Collateral Alliance

XIV: Collateral Alliance 

It was a motley army, Theodorus had noted as he rode down a soggy hillside under a leaden sky and into its midst. Standing in a tent with a handful of lieutenants and a dozen notorious warlords, he knew why: each soldier had the stamp of a different leader, each of whom valued different qualities.

Theodorus glanced about the group. Flaavus, twenty years of nothing-fancy, fist and mace sacking under his belt; Elaria, a bear-like mountain woman whose specialty was guerrilla warfare; Timus, a haughty, mustached cavalry man. Theodorus tried hard to maintain a rein on their wild egos.

"It's not that I don't admire your reputation, Theodorus," spoke Galteus, a tall, brawny warrior with arms like tree trunks, a sword-reach so long his well-displayed flesh showed almost no battle-scars, and a reputation for leading by being the first fighter into battle. "You've cut an efficient swath through the north country for the last few months. But losing seven hundred out of two thousand at Pharsalus today is... troubling."

"It was unusual," Theodorus said. "And that town's always been a difficult attack."

"And Xena was leading their militia..." Alteus spoke up in his general's defense, "we didn't plan for that."

"Just my point," Galteus said.

Flaavus' voice was a heavy growl. "That's what bothers me. You've picked up some bad enemies."

"Callisto's been after you since the problem in Maelon, I heard," Elaria said.

Theodorus' tone was firm. "One do-gooder and an ex-warlord will not stop our march on Athens. We have almost twelve thousand in our ranks."

"That's the wrong pair to have against you though," said Dalttes, a dark-skinned former sailor from Egypt. "And my scouts say there's an army coming to greet us from the south, maybe a couple thousand strong."

"If that army is here to help them..." Flaavus leaned, as was his habit, on his mace like a cane. "Well, maybe the rumors of her turning good are just rumors. Let's just say that if I were to take my army on the same field as one with Xena and a couple thousand of her followers, I'm not certain who I'd be more likely to follow if things got rough."

A satiny voice came from the deeper shadows of the tent. "I hope that would be me, Flaavus." Velasca stepped into the light and to the center of the imperfect circle. "After all, I don't take kindly to turncoat generals."

Theodorus tried to hide his smile at the ashen expressions around the tent. Galteus was the first to recover.

"Velasca..." he said smoothly, "I'm guessing some rumors _are_ just rumors, like the ones of your death."

She smiled a toothy smile at him. "I've never been to Tartarus, if that's what you mean." She raised her hands and sparks flickered from finger to finger. "But I can certainly bring it here."

Velasca pinned each warlord in turn with her otherworldly eyes. "Let me put all those rumors to rest. I am not dead, but I am no longer mortal. My followers call me the God of Chaos... and," her lips twisted wryly, "there are three acceptable sacrifices you may make to me: the head of Gabrielle, Queen of the Amazons, the head of Xena, Warrior Princess, or the head of Callisto, Avenger of Cirra."

Parmus, a one-eyed and heavily scarred warlord originally from Gaul, spat. "I don't have to listen to no talk about false gods..." he stood and headed for the tent's exit. Halfway there, his feet were no longer touching the ground and his body was twitching in the air, touched by no one. After a brief gurgling scream, his head snapped loudly sideways and he fell limply to the floor.

"Anyone who wants to bring me those heads," Velasca continued to the captive audience, "you'll get your chance tomorrow on the battlefield. With the support of Ares, and of me, you and your soldiers _will_ defeat Xena and her friends. And then there will be no one to stop our march on Athens!"

Even the feigned enthusiasm was loud, Theodorus thought. He doubted there would be any defectors tomorrow.

* * *

"Was I lying?"

Ares, chin on fist on knee in his high-backed throne, looked up. "About?"

The God of Chaos stepped forward, casting lengthy sidelong glances at his maidservants until they withdrew. "Your support." 

He smiled, "You know battle is my favorite cause. Of course they have my support." 

Velasca slipped around behind the throne, her fingers touching Ares' hair, one hand playing with his ear. "Do I?" her expression was guarded.

Ares furrowed his brow. "I've protected you from the wrath of the other gods until now, haven't I?"

"Until?" she squeezed his earlobe gently.

"Poor choice of words."

Coming around before him, Velasca pulled Ares to his feet, her arms slipping over his shoulders. She looked deeply into his eyes. "I'll say. Callisto can't stand in my way when I'm this close." She leaned in, her lips near to his. "I need to know you'll help me when I have to face her again." 

"Against the two of us she wouldn't stand a chance," he said.

With a devilish smile Velasca pulled away as his lips sought hers. She slipped out of his embrace, turning and stepping away.

"Still, you've gotta admire that there's always—" he tapped his temple, "—_something_ going on up there with her. I'd love to know how she pulled off godhood again."

"Again?" Velasca looked over her shoulder at him.

He looked at her. "Don't you think your first concern should be getting Theodorus ready to face Xena?"

"With Callisto out of the way I can take care of Xena during the battle. I've beaten her before."

"Aren't we confident!" he mocked. "I wouldn't underestimate the Warrior Princess, Velasca."

The God of Chaos stepped toward him slowly, eyes narrowed. "You still have a soft spot for Xena, don't you, Ares? She abandoned you."

He smiled. "Yeah, but she was fun while she was around."

"I don't like this. Xena's trouble, Ares."

"Look who's talking."

"And Callisto has never done anything but fight you, like her father — your brother — and you say you _admire_ her?" Velasca stood before him, hands on her hips.

Ares flashed her a dark look. "Relax, Velasca. And hold up your end of the exchange."

With a last bitter look, Velasca vanished.

The God of War watched where she had stood. "Hold up your end, before I start thinking I got the raw end of mine."

* * *

Gabrielle was getting used to the tingling sensation of energy coming off Callisto's skin where she touched it, and the feeling of floating while riding atop Whirlwind behind the goddess. She was long past the irony of feeling so safe and comfortable clinging to the woman who, in another world, had tormented and tried to kill her so many times, while the woman she had loved so strongly before she loved still but — almost — feared as well. Instead, as the three left Pharsalus and, by the direction of the sinking sun, traveled southeast, the bard's thoughts had been mulling over fate and things meant-to-be.

Xena's fate was entwined with her own, in any past. That much was sure. Gabrielle knew that as well from what the Warrior Princess had told her of that other altered past, where Xena had not become a warrior.

But something else intrigued her. Was Callisto's life linked to her own as well? In the two pasts Gabrielle remembered, Callisto was destined to be a warrior. Her life was entangled in each with that of Hercules and Xena — and, therein, with the bard's own. Gabrielle thought about that other fate, from Xena's tale. What was Callisto's life in it? Without Xena destroying her village, as here, Cirra had still seen its end, and for Callisto, a new, if tragic, beginning. In that other past, without Xena a warrior at all, wasn't it likely that some warlord had done the same?

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, as strange as that sounded to her. Gabrielle was fascinated by Callisto. As tough as Gabrielle had become in her time with Xena, Callisto, only a few years older, was leagues beyond. She did not have the frame of a warrior, like Xena, yet beneath Gabrielle's touch was, everywhere, firm muscle. But it was not quite a dancer's form, either, as she had considered before. No, Callisto had the lissome body of an acrobat.

And a whip-sharp mind — either past told her that — brilliant even when it had been clouded by hatred. As Gabrielle tilted her head into the wind, eyes taking in the drift of Callisto's hair, the apple of her cheeks in the breeze, the dark line of her eyebrow — in short, the beau ideal among warriors, she half-smiled — this fascinated her the most. What made Callisto just here and blind before? Gabrielle had praised this in her but still not understood it. Melas, whose son had been Callisto's victim, had come out of his bloodlust in time. What would it have taken to bring back Callisto?

"Blue or brown?" Callisto's voice cut into Gabrielle's reverie.

"What?" the bard asked.

The goddess turned a sly smile on her. "Are you still trying to decide which color you like best?"

Gabrielle met those eyes, so much less threatening than they had seemed before. "No," she said simply. She took a deep breath. "Tell me about your training, Callisto."

The warrior's smile faded. "Here... or there?" she asked, eyes ahead as they swept through the countryside.

"Here," the bard asked.

Her voice was unusually audible above the rushing air, or perhaps Callisto was speaking into Gabrielle's heart more than her ears. "Not much to tell. Mostly I learned how to fight from Hercules."

"But he doesn't use weapons."

She shrugged. "Nine tenths of fighting is in the head, and only the rest is in your hands, whether empty or full." Gabrielle could feel the tension in her. "Mostly he just wanted me to know how to defend myself."

The bard followed the unspoken train of thought. "But you wanted more."

"I wanted to strike out. He wanted to keep out." Her whole body sighed. "We both lost."

Gabrielle wasn't sure if it was their closeness right now or just a trick of perception, but it seemed like she could read the goddess' thoughts. Her eyes grew wide. "He's here, isn't he?" she asked, gesturing ahead of them. "With this army."

An almost imperceptible nod.

"And you're afraid to see him," the bard finished.

The voice, still in her head, was quiet. "Afraid to," Callisto said, "and dying to."

Gabrielle shook her head gently, and raised a hand to softly stroke Callisto's hair. The goddess smiled a bit at the tender gesture, and tried to focus on the road as they journeyed on into the dusk.

* * *

Iolaus spotted them first against the fiery halo of the setting sun. He said a quick thanks to Zeus for their safe passage and that Callisto had refrained from anything rash like trying to take on Velasca alone, then raced through the camp towards a tall, long-haired, brawny man assisting with the tent construction.

"They're coming," Iolaus said, winded.

Hercules stood straight, shading his vision from the sun with a hand. "Well isn't that a sight for sore eyes," he said, letting out a long breath.

Hands on his hips, Iolaus stared out at the women's approach. "I swear, if we survive this, I will _never_ let Callisto out of my sight for that long again."

Hercules turned a penetrating, brow-furrowed look on his friend.

Iolaus did a double take at the demi-god's gaze. "With— I mean, within reason, of course." He shifted on his feet nervously. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes."

The blond man opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Let's go greet them," he said at last, and started off.

"Let's," Hercules frowned.

Xena reached them first. Argo's reins in her hand, the Warrior Princess acknowledged Iolaus' nod, then approached Hercules with just the slightest hesitation. "It's good to see you again," she said.

"You too, Xena," Hercules replied, kissing her cheek. 

"I didn't know you were coming."

"I wish it were under better circumstances," he said, "But to help my long lost daughter," his voice raising a tad with a blend of rebuke and affection for Callisto, as she eased Gabrielle to the ground with a helping hand, "I'd go anywhere."

The bard stepped forward as Callisto hung momentarily back, fussing with her saddle.

"Queen of the Amazons," Hercules nodded respectfully, grinning. "They've never had a leader so lovely."

Gabrielle smiled briefly. "I'm glad you're here." She glanced back at the blonde warrioress. "But she could use a little reassurance."

Hercules frowned, face filling with concern. "Callisto?" he called to her.

Robbed by Ares of seeing her mother when it seemed so close, Callisto had lived this meeting over and over in her head since the memory stole upon her in the tavern in Pharsalus. She could hear his voice, but almost couldn't make herself look at him, for fear the reality wouldn't live up to the dream. But then he spoke her name, and she couldn't help but see him. And he was beautiful, handsome and strong and the comfort of her life. "Papa..." she said brokenly.

Her back to the sun and its light in his eyes, Hercules didn't gather in the changes in Callisto before he stepped forward and took her tightly in his arms. She wanted the embrace to last forever. But he felt the difference in her almost immediately. Hercules pushed back from her, but Callisto wouldn't let him beyond arms' length, her strength easily matching his. Her face was a sea of emotions, yet all he could see was the color of her eyes.

"Papa, don't..." she begged.

"Callisto, what have you done?" he asked heavily.

She looked down. "It's a gift from Artemis."

"Well tell her to take it back. Better yet," he pushed away, and she let him, "she's my sister, _I'll_ tell her." He started to turn away. "She can't make you do her dirty work, Callisto."

Callisto lifted her chin defiantly. "I'm going to protect my family and friends from her this time, father."

Hercules paused, then looked back at her questioningly.

"From Velasca," she finished.

"Don't you trust that we could take care of her together?"

She set her jaw. "I do now."

He shook his head slowly. His look of sadness tore at her heart. He lifted a hand to touch her cheek, and she closed her eyes at the caress. "Callisto," he said softly, pulling her close again, "nothing in this world means as much to me as you do. But is this what comes of being apart for so long?"

She pushed back to see his face with silver tears on her own. "Yes, it is. I want to finish this, so she can never come between us again. I don't care about this, these powers," she shook her head, "Olympus can have them back when this is over. But Velasca has Ares on her side, and I'm not leaving anything to chance this time." She wiped away the tears with her hand, composing herself. "I think we need to start preparing," Callisto said to Xena and the others, pulling away from Hercules and grabbing the reins of her horse.

As the group began to follow, Hercules thought worriedly to himself about how little a part chance ever seemed to really have in life, and instead how much a part did fate.


	15. Vigil

XV: Vigil 

"Remind me to give Uncle Iphicles a big kiss when I see him, Iolaus," Callisto said. "It can't have been easy for him to send off twenty five hundred soldiers, knowing how thin that made his own defenses. Not to mention the militiamen you've gathered from towns between there and here."

Iolaus looked up from the half-dozen maps covering the table's surface inside the command tent. He glanced over at Hercules, sitting on the outskirts of the lamp-lit tent beside Gabrielle. "Thank your father, he did the convincing."

"Before you thank anybody," Xena growled, "I'd remember we'll still be outnumbered at least four to one."

"That's what you're here for," Callisto returned with a smile that the Warrior Princess did not share. She met Hercules' almost distracted look and offered a nod to thank him anyway before she went back to discussing strategy with Talmus, one of Corinth's generals, and a handful of his captains. Hercules was less interested in discussing strategy than in watching Callisto, and by contrast, Xena.

His daughter displayed the same confidence and leadership he'd seen grow in her almost from when he'd taken her in. He could remember that hollow, withdrawn look she'd had when he first saw her amidst the smoking ruins of Cirra, not so far from here. At first he couldn't believe she was still alive, but she'd told him she had taken to hiding in a cave nearby, and still came to the burned-out town every day, searching, hoping to find something she could cling to. And she had found it; it had been him.

She had no relatives to take her in. No neighbors. He'd taken her to Pharsalus, hoping for some bit of charity for the girl. All the while, day after day while he searched, her hand clutching his, she kept that lost look. The first time Hercules saw anything else in her was when he asked if she wanted to stay with him.

Callisto took to Deianeira right away, and his wife had managed to bring back the life in her. After a few weeks, Callisto almost seemed like any normal, happy young girl; after a few months, it was like she had always been with them. As Deianeira grew heavy with their third child, Callisto even managed to take over the household for her, running things when his wife couldn't — including ordering Hercules around as she deemed necessary, something Deianeira was forever amused at. And that same confidence showed here among the other soldiers, as it had ever since.

The Warrior Princess, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable and withdrawn — qualities he would rarely associate with her when matters of war were being discussed. Perhaps it was that Talmus hadn't hidden his distaste for her, despite both Callisto's endorsement and Hercules' own. She watched the battle plans laid out, and had argued strongly over a few points, but now acted like she distinctly wanted to be somewhere else.

He leaned in close to Gabrielle beside him, voice pitched low. "Is Xena all right? She doesn't seem herself."

Gabrielle snorted. "You have no idea." She shook her head, then stood. "Excuse me," she said, and ducked under the tent flap past the guards and out into the night.

Xena, seeing Gabrielle's departure, moved to follow, but Callisto caught her arm and her eyes, silently cautioning her to stay. Seeing Hercules heading out after the bard, Xena forced away her impulse and forced her attention back to the planning.

But she couldn't focus on it. Callisto could sense her uneasiness, though the other commanders didn't, and didn't miss her repeated glances at the tent's exit. When the Warrior Princess finally shook her head and started to leave the table, the goddess blocked her path.

"No," Callisto said.

Xena answered only by stepping around her and into the night air. She pulled up short when she found Callisto in front of her again, and frowned at the divine display. "I have to talk to her!" Xena said angrily.

"No, you don't," Callisto said gently, but firmly. "You know why. He'll watch her closest of all; she lives and breathes the truth... which is why he fears her the most." She touched Xena's arm. "Come back inside. This battle has to be yours most of all."

The dark-haired warrior could not meet the goddess' eyes. "Callisto, I know it's important to your plan, but... I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can lead out there tomorrow." 

"You're right, Xena," Callisto answered after a moment, "it _is_ important to my plan. It's essential. What it comes down to is this: Velasca, and Theodorus' army, against me, and what we can band together here. Theodorus is a good warlord, but he's no general. I can defeat Velasca, I have before, but our legion needs a general, Xena. And no one is better at that than you."

Xena looked up at the admiration in Callisto's voice, unaccompanied by the contempt she had grown so used to hearing along with it in the past that she had such trouble shaking. As she looked into eyes that held such wisdom for their age, Xena thought she saw for the first time what Gabrielle had been seeing right along — a faith that matched the bard's own. She just hoped that tomorrow, she could live up to it. 

* * *

Hercules caught up with the bard warming her goose-flesh by one of the camp's many fires. She didn't turn her head as he stepped up beside her, merely stared into the flames. Hercules offered his palms to the heat.

"This feels good," he said. "There's been a chill in the air the last few nights."

Gabrielle sighed. "It's not the cold that's making me shiver. But I sure have felt a chill."

She was silent for long moments. He didn't press her; he knew better. Gabrielle was very much like someone else in his life.

At last she turned to him. "Hercules... has anything ever come between you and Iolaus... I mean something so strong you felt like you didn't know him anymore?"

He just looked at her, eyebrows raised. After a moment she rolled her eyes at her own question. "Of course it has... Xena did."

Hercules half-smiled with her, then let it fade as she looked distantly into the orange flickering again. "Is that what's wrong, Gabrielle? Do you feel something's coming between the two of you?"

"I don't know," the bard shook her head. "It's just that ever since Callisto has been with us... Xena has seemed different. I've seen a darker side to her. I've felt it."

"Well I don't think Callisto is trying to come between the two of you in quite the way Xena did with Iolaus and I," Hercules shrugged. "I don't think it's a plot or anything, I mean. My daughter has always been headstrong and reckless... but she's never been conniving."

Gabrielle blinked several times before she answered. "I didn't mean it like that, Hercules," she assured him finally. "Maybe it's just the two of us relate to different sides of her." She poked a smoldering log back into the fire with the end of her staff. "Obviously I don't fight anything like Callisto does... but she and Xena are like a matched set of scroll holders that way. Brings out something I haven't seen in Xena very much. And a lot of things come with that darker side of her."

The demi-god gestured around them. "And you've been fighting quite bit lately, as I understand it."

She nodded, looking down.

He turned to face her full. "Bloodlust is a powerful thing, Gabrielle. However empty it finally makes you, hate and anger can make you feel very full at the time, can seem to give you purpose. For someone like Xena, who gave into it for so long, it is very easy to slip back." He touched her arm. "She needs you to help her, Gabrielle, like you have for so long." Looking down himself, he added, "I wish I had been with Callisto more like that myself."

Gabrielle shook her head. "Hercules, Callisto is a good person. She is just like you."

"Not 'just like' me. She uses weapons, and I never have."

"She's not quite as strong as you are," the bard smiled.

He didn't. "She kills." He met her eyes. "There's an anger in her, Gabrielle. One I thought had gone away years ago, but was just hiding. Now, tomorrow, against Velasca... I'm afraid for her, Gabrielle."

"You don't think she can handle Velasca?"

"I'm sure Callisto can handle her. I'm afraid Callisto will kill her."

Gabrielle frowned. "That would be a bad thing? With all that Velasca's done?"

"All that's important tomorrow is to defeat Velasca's army. Then even Ares can't protect her from the rest of the gods for how she's interfered here." He looked past Gabrielle, back the way they had come. "But if Callisto kills Velasca... _she'll_ face their anger."

"Why?"

"Gods mustn't kill other gods."

Gabrielle felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. "What would they do?"

He shrugged. "Normally, they'd take her godhood away. But since Callisto doesn't care about that, I'm afraid it would be worse. Maybe much worse."

Though she could tell Hercules didn't know what "much worse" meant, Gabrielle had the deepest suspicion that she did. And as the knot tightened to a hard little ball, the bard knew with certainty sleep would not come easily or well that night.

* * *

It was full night, Artemis' moon halfway up the sky, when Iolaus and Xena emerged from the command tent, eyes bleary from too many maps and throats hoarse from too many arguments.

"That Talmus is a stubborn old man," Iolaus growled.

"He doesn't like turning over control of his troops," Xena replied. "I can understand that. It takes a lot of work to earn your soldiers' loyalty."

Iolaus looked at her, then away. "I've never had troops," he said. "With my father being a general, I never had much stomach for organized war. But I do know about loyalty."

She sensed a vague insult in his words, but ignored it. "This isn't a barroom brawl we're going into tomorrow. Are you going to be ready for this?"

"I know what kind of fight this is going to be, Xena," he answered, "your kind."

The Warrior Princess forced a deep breath, but couldn't control her anger. She stepped in front of the shorter man, and poked a finger into his chest. "Look, Iolaus, I gave up all this! And I didn't ask to be dragged back into it." Xena gestured back at the tent. "I have your niece or your girlfriend or whatever you want to call her to thank for that."

"She's not my girlfriend," Iolaus blinked.

"She's trouble, that's what she is," Xena spat, and headed off into the night.

"You could learn a lot more being around her than walking away, Xena!" he called to her retreating back. He hung his head, shaking it, at her lack of response. "She's not my niece, either," he said to himself. Then he noticed Callisto standing just behind him to one side, watching the Warrior Princess' departure as well.

"Did you hear that?" Iolaus asked her disgustedly. "The nerve of her."

Callisto's sad expression didn't change. "She's right. I _am_ trouble."

Iolaus frowned. "That's not true." He moved to her, taking her hands in his. "With all the good things you've done in your life, how can you say that?"

Inexplicably, she seemed on the verge of tears. "All the things I've done in my life, Iolaus, have been because of an obsession with a tragedy I can't let go."

"It's not an easy thing to do, Callisto."

She shook her head. "But it _is_ possible. Look at father. He hasn't spent all his time bent on revenge." She gestured back the way Xena had left. "Even Xena got past all her pain. Why can't I?"

"Hercules does still have that anger, Callisto. He lets it drive him to do good — just like you do."

She looked down. "It's not the same. Look around you, Iolaus. My quest has brought all this about in ways you can't even imagine. I've put everybody in danger, everyone I care about."

He touched her cheek softly. "Everyone you care about is by your side, Callisto, however it came about. That's what's important."

Wetness hung on her lashes. "I want to believe that. I don't want everybody trapped by my obsession, Iolaus."

The blond warrior pulled her close, arms wrapped around her tightly. She buried her face in his shoulder. "Tomorrow, Callisto, that will all be over."

At the idea of such a thing, Callisto felt her guts twist. She pushed back to look into his face. "And then what do I do?"

Iolaus looked at her puzzled face. Her beautiful face, as fearful and confused as a child's on the verge of something strange and new. She was really so young, this woman, so vulnerable beneath the great warrior's skills. He adored her all the more for it. "Then you begin living your life, Callisto. Then you begin your life."

* * *

The raven-tressed warrior knelt among the silent headstones, arms resting atop the hilt of her planted sword. She could make out the etched names in the silver light, but she didn't want to. How many more would join them tomorrow, what began here ending here again?

She was not surprised when the hands touched her shoulders and the quiet voice spoke from behind her. "You really ought to get some sleep."

"I had to see the landmarks in person, something maps aren't always good for."

A hand left her shoulder to touch her hair, stroking it softly. "And how important is the placement of my mother's grave to the battle plan?" There was vague amusement in the tone.

There was no response.

"You've been very convincing, by the way."

"I haven't had to try very hard. People here just naturally expect it out of me."

"Like you have of me."

A pause. "Like I have of myself."

"Welcome to the club."

The raven warrior turned her head. "You mean there's been a conscience in that pretty head of yours all along?"

A shrug, tossing the bright hair, snowy in the pale light. "Depends on which me you're asking."

"Callisto... if it happens tomorrow, if Ares does take me... I want you to take care of Gabrielle," Xena said after a long pause. "Watch over her, keep her out of trouble."

There were a thousand responses in Callisto's mind as she knelt beside the Warrior Princess, but only one that was appropriate. "I will." She put out her hand and rest it atop Xena's on the sword hilt. "Now let's see that it doesn't happen."

Xena met the goddess' eyes, pale blue to paler. There was something akin to a smile in her own, as much as she dared allow. With a nod, she stood. "I'm going to head back. I've seen all I need here." Xena lifted her sword and sheathed it. "Are you coming?"

Callisto sat back on her heels, then reached out an arm to touch the headstone of her mother's grave. "I think I'll stay awhile, actually."

"In the morning, then," Xena nodded, and started back.

The goddess smiled to herself, running her fingers over the chiseled letters in the stone. With the morning would come a new day, a new chapter for her. Until then, she thought she'd keep a vigil here, for the last night of the old.


	16. Legion

XVI: Legion 

At first Gabrielle thought it was just the light of sunrise dripping crimson on the earth. At least that part of her which took comfort from denial clung to the idea. It was only as the sun climbed higher and higher, the color a pungent sheen, that the illusion disappeared and her imagination recast the slickness beneath her feet as what must coat the walls of Tartarus.

Gabrielle couldn't remember feeling this alone since she had left home, excepting the first few days after Xena's death on Mt. Nessus. Alone, yet surrounded by people, each of them possessed of the madness of war. Ares must be laughing, she thought.

She had lost track of Hercules and Iolaus hours ago, Xena longer still, and Callisto she hadn't seen since the previous evening. Long before sunrise, Xena's plan broke the army into several pieces, placed strategically through the valley of Cirra.

The valley of death.

Cirra had nestled at the bottom of a gently sloping, tree-topped hill, in the soft bottom of a dale that ran northeast to southwest. Two hundred yards to the southeast beyond the ruins, themselves amidst heavy greens, was a thin line of tall trees, and a quarter mile beyond them, east and south, the heavy forest began again.

Theodorus' army moved around the hilltop and down the valley, strong guard to its right flank, protecting against attack over the hill. He would have preferred to flood the valley with troops, in one solid caravan, or better yet, cross along the hillcrest, making Xena's army attack from below. But the geography made that impossible. Instead they had to travel down the angled valley floor. Worse, because of their numbers, they had to split around the narrow run of tall, bare-bottomed pines and again to both sides of the dilapidated remains of Callisto's long ago home.

His first mistake was concentrating attention on what he expected was hidden amidst the broken buildings and copse of woods around it, when the danger was above his men instead. Right in the belly of his war machine Xena had planted a dangerous stinger: three dozen bowmen high in the artificially close, dark branches of the spine of trees at mid-valley. Such trees were usually high but sparse, a detail that Theodorus' normally sharp eye missed in the dark skies of early morning.

Waiting long moments as the foot soldiers and cavalry trudged by, eyes sharp and ears keen, the Warrior Princess watched among the trees on the hill above. As the sun's first rays broke the horizon and stole into the highest branches, she nodded for the signal. Iolaus trained a mirror on the rouge sliver and sent a shaft to the archers' commander. The high perched soldiers set aside their camouflaging branches and began a deadly rain upon the unsuspecting troops below. Wave after wave came down, a hundred soldiers dead before the screams of the first reached the ears of the generals.

An alarm was sounded and more soldiers streamed towards the valley's center, backs turned towards the ruins on the west and the treeline to the east. Then, as the ranks thinned just enough, several hundred more soldiers of Corinth rose up from hiding places beneath the feet of those in Cirra proper.

With the attack coming from within and not without, Theodorus gave out his orders and the other generals followed suit to their followers. The army turned in upon itself... at which point Talmus began a charge in from the woods below Cirra and the southern valley end, and, like Death upon a pale horse, Xena herself lead her warriors over the hillside and down like hawks on the startled right flank, and around from behind the hill to Theodorus' back.

Just as Xena said, her army was outnumbered four to one. But attacking on eight fronts, four within and from all sides without, they had the upper hand almost immediately.

Still, three hours later and surrounded by the stench of spilled blood and torn bodies, Gabrielle knew first hand how hard it is to kill a trapped animal. Hands stinging, she drove her staff into the belly of a scarred, red-slicked man who'd probably seen his share of friends die that day, and watched his eyes go blank as the wind left him. Unable to allow sympathy to drive her here, she spun and cracked the back of his skull with her weapon's other end.

Then swung back to position neutral, ready for another, and dreamed that someday this battle would end.

* * *

Ambrosia in her veins, she could feel Velasca' anger as she could sense Ares' mirth. It was only a matter of time, Callisto knew, before Velasca lost control and attacked Xena's army herself.

In fact, she thought this part would be harder, the waiting. In the command tent last night, Callisto had read the maps and shared the strategies, and imagined her pulse pounding now, seeing the battle unfold before her, anxious to fight and defend her uncle's men, her friends' lives. But it was not so. The ambush working perfectly, the battle for her hometown playing out like she wished it had years ago, the goddess felt strangely at peace. Her part clear, her mission set, she felt no bloodlust at all.

Down in that valley was a man she loved with all her heart, another she might yet, and a young woman she could call friend — her first since blood was last shed here — and none of them took lives, whatever the cause or urge for revenge. Callisto thought she might, at day's end, take that vow herself. It might just be time.

Down, too, on the battlefield, Callisto could feel another heart, and in it something quite different. There was more blood on her skin and armor than that heart pumped through her veins, and with every drop Xena spilled, Callisto sensed the Princess' soul inch closer to that chasm it had been approaching since a night in the Temple of the Fates. With Callisto's encroaching peace, so had anger stolen over Xena, like sand through a timeglass, leaving one vessel for the other. And just like seconds counted out so, approached the moment to use that exchange.

The warrior queen thought back to an endless time trapped inches away from her divine opponent, remembering every detail of it, playing through the memories, her own discipline against the unfocused rage. Velasca would not be long. Knowing her advantages, Callisto watched still and waited.

Patience is a virtue.

* * *

It was like the old days. For so long, Xena had been trapped in that solitary life with only one real companion, and spent moment after moment making hard choices that ever seemed to keep her alone. Only in brief moments did she get to feel this rush of battle, and now that it was upon her, a real fight, she knew something fundamental about herself:

She missed it.

Argo felt nimble and confident beneath her. The mare was feeding off her mistress' energy, responding willingly to every nudge and command as Xena plowed through the enemy like a battering ram. She longed for this too, the challenge, the drive, what she'd been trained for. Almost without encouragement, the horse would stomp flailing limbs and kick fallen enemies.

Turning her horse to ride back up the hillside, Xena wheeled and her eyes scanned the field. Theodorus' army was a mess, split into dozens of pieces as her forces drove through and splintered them. Off to the south Xena could see the pennon of Talmus' command. Almost directly between herself and the Corinthian general were the colors that indicated Theodorus' position.

She gestured to a nearby soldier of her army. "Yes, Warrior Princess?" the sweating young man asked, reining his horse up near her.

"Ride to General Talmus," she ordered. "Tell him to make a push towards Theodorus, and I'll meet him there. If we can pinch him off directly, we can force a surrender. He won't be in shape for anything else."

"Right away sir," the soldier nodded, and charged off with a snap of leather.

Setting Argo beneath her, Xena twirled her sword to slough off the thin veneer of blood. Breathing deep a heady mixture of sweat and gore, and imagining the look of shocked resignation on Theodorus' face when she would ask for his submission, her lips twisted into a satisfied smile and she kicked Argo into a full charge.

This might be a good day yet.

* * *

"I'm losing!" Velasca raged at Ares. "This cannot continue!"

The God of War shrugged from his throne. "Apparently it can. It's continued for hours now."

"You don't care," she growled, "You're feeding off the bloodshed."

Ares held out his arms. "I'm just soaking up the rays," he smiled.

She drew her sword, eyes focused on the battle far below Olympus and nothing within the room. "You _will_ care when your army is slaughtered and nothing is left to march on Athens."

He stood and stepped to her, his hand closing over hers on her sword-hilt. "Relax, my little spitfire. I'm just taking some necessary losses."

"Necessary?" Velasca questioned, brow furrowed.

"Which of us is more experienced at war, here?" He followed her otherworldly gaze. "Theodorus is losing three to one down there. But Xena's about to take some heavy losses. She'll be too thin, Theodorus will break through, and with Corinth's army half-gone nothing will stop us."

"And what losses would those be?"

Ares took her hand in his, raising it to his lips. "The ones that you're about to inflict, my dear."

The God of Chaos cocked an eyebrow, pursing her lips. "And what about Callisto?"

"You let me handle her. After all," the God of War's eyes sparkled, "I promised my support, didn't I?"

Velasca flashed a crooked smile, and leaning in, kissed Ares teasingly. "Then let's get to it, shall we?" And she vanished.

"Time to loose the dogs of war," Ares smiled to himself.

* * *

Velasca's first act upon materializing on the battlefield was to loose a long flicker of lightning at the trees Xena's archers had been perched in all morning. Though half had already lost their lives, the rest joined them in Hades' company as what was not immediately incinerated of the pines was roasted in the flames that licked up their trunks and out along the branches.

Her second, upon locating the flag of Corinth with her far seeing eyes, sent a wave of earth, rising five feet from level ground, directly towards it. Friend and foe were knocked indiscriminately out of the way and, as the swell closed upon its mark, the forces holding the ground together against it gave way, and what reached General Talmus in his last moments of life was not so much a wave as a giant mouth of crumbling rock that literally swallowed him — and his horrified screams — whole.

Velasca's third act was to pitch forward into the dirt as the flaming hooves of a massive supernatural horse kicked her in the skull as the beast passed overhead.

Knocked to the edge of groggy, the God of Chaos rolled to her back and shot a blast of lightning blindly, missing Callisto completely. Whirlwind wheeled about and charged again, and though Velasca rolled at the last moment, it was straight into the loop of Callisto's lariat. With a jerk the warrior queen tightened the rope and began to drag Velasca along the ground.

The trapped goddess couldn't seem to right herself as she whipped heavily along the earth, rocks and dirt and fallen bodies stinging and slamming her as she careened over them. Lashing out an arm to slow herself, she gripped an ankle and brought the leg with her, but not the unlucky soldier. Blood sprayed across her face and into her pale eyes.

Blind and buffeted, Velasca was just regaining her senses when the rope jerked her sideways and then released her, sending her body rolling like a log across level and empty ground. The sounds of battle were lessened here as she pitched to a stop and struggled to her hands and knees. Wiping the blood from her eyes and looking about, she realized why. This was where the battle had swelled from and left behind.

Callisto had dragged her to the center of the ruins of Cirra.

Velasca's head whipped back to the front at the sound of creaking leather, but that served only to let Callisto's boot catch her full in the face instead of the ear.

"You can't imagine how long I've wanted to do _that_!" the Vengeance Immortal said as Velasca flipped end over end in the air to land on her back in the dirt.

The God of Chaos shook her head as Callisto approached again. As her enemy neared she rolled to her stomach and kicked back with her leg, catching Callisto in the belly. But the blonde warrior recovered quickly as Velasca leapt to her feet, and twisted sideways around a punch to snap a backhand to the rear of Velasca's head. Stumbling forward, the exiled Amazon caught herself on a brittle timber that long ago supported a roof. Across the bloody battlefield she could smell the sickly odor of charred flesh, see scorched branches fall from the fire-licked pines.

In single combat, Velasca could not win, and she knew this instinctively. She grasped instead at a psychological lever. As Callisto stalked forward she eyed the ceiling post in her hand, and with a thought, its dry fibers burst into flame. Velasca took a deep breath, drawing the fingers of fire towards her lips as her lungs filled with rancid air. Then she blew upon the flames and they whipped in a sudden strong wind and leapt across to the next dead building, and the next.

She could see the startled look in Callisto's eyes. "Familiar, isn't it?" she taunted. The warrior queen took a step backwards. "Isn't it lovely?"

Callisto felt a sweat break out on her forehead. Smoke belched up from the dry timbers and the moister, smoldering grass around them. The sky was suddenly dark with it.

"Can't you just see it in your head, Callisto?" Velasca said, stepping forwards. "You remember that night, don't you?"

Velasca breathed across her open palm and abruptly the wind shifted, blowing smoke in Callisto's eyes, forcing them closed. She thickened the air and the cries from the battlefield were immediately louder, almost deafening. "Can't you hear the screams, Callisto?" she spoke slowly, hypnotically.

Unable to see, Callisto was gripped by memories in the field of vision within her head. The noise, so deafening, wails of pain, roar of fire, rush of wind. The acrid smell of smoke and roasted flesh. Her blood began to pound.

"Remember how I smothered you here, Callisto? How I ripped everything away from you that made you happy, made you a person?"

She tried to blink open her eyes, but the same flames as in her mind were there before her, the same buildings, the same trees, the same fires.

"How I crushed you, Callisto?" Velasca growled, very close now, reaching out a hand to tear out her throat. "How I made you helpless?"

Callisto's eyes snapped open, staying open against the burning smoke. Same smoke. Same fires. Same trees. Same buildings.

Different her.

Callisto grabbed Velasca's wrist three inches from her throat and twisted it savagely. She jerked it and the body attached closer, and slammed her other palm into the middle of Velasca's chest, knocking the breath completely out of her.

Velasca stumbled backwards, gasping for air.

"You can't scare me, Velasca," Callisto spoke evenly. "I'm not a child anymore."

She stepped forward, backhanding the brunette warrior savagely across the face.

"And you never made me helpless." Callisto grasped Velasca with a hand behind her neck. "You made me what I am today," she leaned in very close. "Alive. And more powerful than you." Snapping forward she head-butted the God of Chaos fiercely, and Velasca reeled.

Callisto stalked forwards—

—and stopped dead, then sailed backwards violently. Crashing to her back, she struggled to sit up and saw the God of Chaos bent over, wheezing, hands on her knees, and the God of War shaking a finger in her own direction.

"It's not nice to bite the hand that made you," he snickered.

* * *

Iolaus swung about at the grip on his shoulder, fist in full flight to connect with a nose. Hercules stopped it with his palm, ducking his head sideways. The shorter man rolled his eyes in realization.

"It's time, Iolaus," Hercules said.

Iolaus looked about. "It is? How do you know?"

The demi-god pointed towards the flaming village, and the great blasts of lightning that were now arcing out of its center and smacking down into the midst of the Corinthian army.

"I guess you're right," Iolaus nodded. Looking about, he spotted two warriors in the heavy bearskins of the warlord Elaria's guerrilla army, one tall, the other much shorter. "Those'll do," he said, and with a nod of agreement, the two old friends started towards them.

* * *

Callisto struggled to breathe as she slammed into the clutter of collapsed ceiling beams, the flames around her sucking away the air. Ares was coming towards her again. Beyond him she could see Velasca laughing, arms raised high, shooting off bolts of death, turning their victory into ruin.

She rolled deeper into the smashed hut, smacking a flaming log at Ares that he easily deflected.

"Come now, Callisto," he mused, "that's hardly worthy of a god."

"So is what you're doing," she snapped back. "And I'm sure Zeus will look so highly on it."

He shrugged, stalking through the flames. "Didn't Velasca tell you, Callisto? I won't care what Zeus thinks about this very soon now."

"Very soon maybe," Callisto grabbed another burning timber. "But not yet." Again, she hurled it at him. He knocked it away, but for an instant he lost sight of her and she dove past Ares and out of the building. Rolling to her feet, Callisto let loose a bolt of her own, and the roof fell in on him.

Seconds passed, and Callisto hoped, but then the entire structure blasted apart and the God of War stepped out unmarred. He came at her again.

"You don't get it," Ares growled. "I become stronger with every death in this battle. And your pathetic army is the only thing between me and Athens. When we walk into there, I'll sit in Zeus' throne on Olympus myself."

Callisto turned and tried to flee, but Ares was in front of her instantly. He wrapped an iron fist about her throat and lifted her off the ground. "Now, let's get this over with."

"Wait!" Callisto panted, "I'll make you an exchange." 

Ares shook his head. "I think I've had my fill of those," he said, gripping her throat tighter.

"Not this one, Ares," she gasped.

"What's that?" he sneered impatiently.

She blinked, and then, deciding, seemed painfully resigned, "You give up Velasca... and I'll give you Xena."

* * *

The Warrior Princess tried to calm her troops but was becoming angrier all the while. With the first bolts of lightning her men had begun to scatter and leave their positions, and Theodorus' men were taking quick advantage of it to regain ground. No one was listening to her orders.

She wheeled around another blast from the sky and resumed her charge towards the opposing general's position. As a footsoldier she had recognized from camp last evening turned tail and tried to run past her and towards the forest and safety, Xena kicked out with a boot that caught him square in the temple, knocking him unconscious. With barely a second thought she kept moving towards her goal.

* * *

Ares threw back his head and laughed, but dropped Callisto to the ground. "_That_ sounds like the Callisto I knew! But how are you going to manage it?"

The blonde goddess crawled to her feet, massaging her windpipe. "She's already on the edge," Callisto said. "I've nearly taken her precious Gabrielle away from her already. Now I have her back in charge of an army."

Behind her, Velasca stopped her attack, suddenly curious.

"She can smell it, Ares," Callisto went on, "the glories of war are in her nostrils again. All she needs is a little push, and she's yours. You abandon Velasca, and Xena will crush Theodorus' army. And when I take away the bard permanently... Xena will be yours."

The God of War cocked his head. He glanced momentarily over her shoulder at his protégé, who was starting to approach, then back at the woman before him. "And what about you? Do I get you back in the fold?"

Callisto sighed, and shook her head. "I'm done with you, Ares. I'm done with fighting, done with war, done with paying back every horrid thing life has dealt me. I'm tired of it; I've done it all too long. Velasca is my last debt."

"And you'd betray Xena to pay it?"

"Xena loves war, Ares, and I don't. She wants to be with you again." She took a deep breath. "I want a life."

The God of War pondered deeply. He nodded towards Velasca. "But... I do have obligations."

Then, for a moment, there was a venomous, childlike twist in Callisto's voice. "Honestly, Ares, wouldn't you rather have Xena lead you into Athens?"

And that did it. A great smile formed on his lips that grew wider by the second. 

"Ares, you can't!" Velasca called to him.

With a sigh, Ares shrugged. "Sorry, Velasca, but what is it they say, 'all's fair in love and war'? And, well, what can I do? This is both."

The God of Chaos blanched.

"You'll be along presently? Work to do, you know," Ares said to Callisto.

"I'll be just a minute," she said, and Ares vanished.

For perhaps the first time in her life, as Callisto turned her head slowly around to face her own, Velasca felt very, very afraid.

* * *

The distraction was just what he'd been needing. Theodorus had left too much in the gods' hands, that much he knew, but still he had stalwart, experienced warlords in his company and above all else, they knew how to judge and use their opportunities. When the attack that could only have been from Velasca came, every warlord still standing had given the same order, to attack like banshees.

And it was working. His warriors, on their heels since the ambush at dawn, were retaking ground quickly. With the archers' roost in the trees destroyed, they had more room to negotiate around Xena's contingent in the ruins, which had pressed out towards the archers and nearly cut the valley — and his army — in two. He gave an order to have Flaavus drive back down through the gap between Cirra and the archers' roost from the northeast, where Xena's position was weakest. Maybe they could play the same game on her as she had on them.

Then, not for the first time, Theodorus wondered just what it was that had led him into Velasca's clutches in the first place. Yes, she was strong, and beautiful, but she seemed to have little need for love. He wished, as he did often, that his life had followed a different path.

What would it be like, he wondered, had he taken up with someone like the heroine Callisto instead?

* * *

Velasca hadn't realized that it was possible, as a god, to feel pain. But with the blow across the face that would have shattered any mortal's cheekbone, she couldn't consider the discomfort to be anything else.

As the Vengeance Immortal had approached, twisted grin on her face, Velasca had had time to draw her sword and prepare, but that had only made it worse. The Amazon was no slouch with a blade, and had faced her share of skilled opponents, but Callisto was like nothing she'd ever seen. The blonde goddess' eyes had lit up at the sight of Velasca's sword and she drew her own with glee. The God of Chaos stepped in to attack, rather than react, but Callisto's weapon struck Velasca's and slid down to hit the crosspiece with an impact that made Velasca's hand sting.

Callisto pulled back and Velasca followed, swinging, but the warrior queen had twisted clean away and Velasca struck nothing, still moving forward, off balance. Callisto, her motion smooth and fluid, smacked Velasca smartly across the backside with the flat of her sword and laughed.

Still, the brunette warrior felt no choice but to stay on the offensive, so, wheeling quickly, she attacked again. This time Callisto stood her ground and exchanged blows.

Left, right, parry, counter, right thrust, lunge — Callisto matched each move in a hypnotic dance. Then, like an angry hovering wasp, the warrior queen's sword dipped in for a quick strike, a neat tear across Velasca's left arm, before returning to the fast jig of swings and jabs.

Sweat broke out on Velasca's forehead. Ten more blows, another easy slice, while the God of Chaos couldn't find an opening in her opponent's defense. Callisto was toying with her.

Velasca's arm began to tire, and the cuts she was receiving only hastened that. She doubled her efforts and Callisto's smile faded. The blonde goddess' eyes narrowed and she launched a rain of real attacks that drove Velasca backwards, off balance again. The sword's edge cut her again and again, while her own counters were practically useless. Finally Callisto, tired of the game, knocked aside Velasca's blade and grabbed the God of Chaos by the throat, lifting her from her feet. Face ablaze with pent-up rage, Callisto swung her sword back and smacked Velasca hard across the face with hand and hilt, knocking her to the ground.

The Amazon looked up from the ground, head ringing, to see Callisto's sword raised over her heart, perched to plunge.

"You can't kill me," Velasca said.

Callisto's tone was arrogant and angry. "Oh, but you're wrong. You weren't born a god, you see, and ambrosia only takes you so far." She dimpled Velasca's skin with the point of her sword. "There are a thousand ways for you to die. And you'll be begging me to use any of them when I'm finished. The flames of Tartarus will seem a comfort to you."

She drew back the sword and delivered instead a kick to the ribs that sent Velasca tumbling. The God of Chaos righted herself and let loose a blast of lighting as Callisto stalked towards her again. The warrior queen ducked.

"That's right, Velasca, give me reasons." She held out her arms. "Provoke me."

The ground shook, then opened at Callisto's feet, but her feet were no longer there as she sprung and tumbled towards Velasca like a demon. Suddenly before the Amazon, Callisto grabbed Velasca by the hair, wrenching back her head. "I'm going to make you scream before you die, like my mother did."

Velasca winced. "So the self-righteous Avenger of Cirra stoops to torture, eh?" she said through gritted teeth. "Are all those stories of how just you are only stories, then?"

"Right now," Callisto seethed at her, "I _am_ justice!" The warrior queen slammed her face into the ground, then pulled the head back again, sword at her throat.

"You know what the gods will do if you kill me, don't you?"

Callisto smiled crookedly. "Oh, because you ate their candy you're entered into their precious club?" The smile drained from the edges, leaving only a bitter mask. "I can't think of any god but Ares who would mourn your passing, Velasca. And where is he now?"

Velasca couldn't answer. Callisto withdrew the sword and slammed the pommel into the back of the God of Chaos' skull, knocking her groggy. Then, with a wave of Callisto's hand, the ground rumbled and split, and Velasca slid down into the opened hole. Another motion, and the earth sealed back up around her, trapping all but her head and shoulders, which rest in the dirt.

"You wait here," Callisto sneered to Velasca, who was too weak to raise her head, "I have to go fulfill my end of the bargain."

* * *

Her army faltering on all sides, Xena's mad charge against Theodorus seemed intended to will victory to her by itself. The Warrior Princess' sword trailing blood in a wind-curled wake, Argo could barely avoid trampling the bodies as they fell before and around her.

Ares watched in pride and awe. Soon she would be his again. As disappointing as it was to lose Callisto and, by necessity, Velasca, this would all but make up for it.

Xena barreled her way through the outer guard towards the General's pennon. Following Flaavus' lead they were pushing into the soft belly of Xena's forces between the ruins and the cinders of the archer's nest.

There was as motley a group in Theodorus' inner circle as comprised his army: a host of horsemen from Timus' ranks, a half dozen brawny footsoldiers of Galteus' and Flaavus' legions, a mismatched pair of bearskin-clad brutes from Elaria's menagerie, and all around, longbowmen from Balthus and crossbowmen from his own army. Doubtless chosen for their prowess, Xena knew this would be a hard fight to reach the commander-in-chief. She steeled herself for their onslaught as she broke into their midst.

But the first attack, a lethal arrow strike from her blind-side, stopped in mid-air six feet from its target. Hearing the whistle what would have been too late, Xena spun in her saddle to see, as no one else around her did, the leather-clad God of War, arm raised, fletching protruding through his fingers.

"Don't thank me yet," he smiled.

"I don't intend to thank you at all," Xena replied. "I intend for you to stay out of this."

"And lose my general?"

"Wouldn't you rather the battle decided that?"

Eyebrows raised, his look almost amused, Ares bowed and gestured Xena forward graciously. The Warrior Princess saw a little echo of Callisto in the movement, but said nothing.

The ruckus had drawn the General's attention. Theodorus had swung his horse around to face her, his minions pushing in on all sides for a shot, but he held them off with a raised hand, forming a circle about the two leaders.

"This is the end of the line, Theodorus," Xena called. "This battle is decided by my fight with you."

Theodorus shrugged. "Maybe, Xena. You might gain advantage by defeating me, but the rest of your army is running."

"He's right, Xena," Ares agreed from behind her.

Theodorus' eyes went wide as he too saw the powerful figure.

"That would be a hollow victory, wouldn't it?" Ares continued. "On the other hand," his lips twisting in a smirk as he walked the perimeter of the circle, "there is a way to turn this entire thing around. Right here."

Xena's tone was skeptical. "And what would that be?"

Ares raised his hands. "Kill Theodorus and take his place. You could lead an army of that size much farther than the one you command."

Theodorus gripped the reins of his horse tighter in his fist.

"That's not what I want, Ares," Xena said.

"Oh yes it is, Xena. I know you miss the old days," Ares said craftily, knowing how her heart agreed with him. "And why are you here anyway? Because Callisto asked you to be?"

Xena nodded curtly.

"And what has she done but step between you and your little friend? Like she stepped between you and Hercules."

Xena felt her stomach churning, her blood beginning to boil at his truth, and the buried feelings it was playing to.

"You know it's true, Xena. You miss this. The smell of a battlefield, the sounds of it, of your orders being followed, of outwitting a powerful enemy. You can salvage that now. Come back to me, Xena."

She felt the rage building inside her like a snarl; she flexed her grip on her sword.

"All you have to do is kill him, and take his place. Just kill him," his tone low and encouraging, still moving slowing around to before her. "Otherwise, just surrender and get it over with. You've lost."

Every muscle was coiled now, all the cries within herself, all the memories of her short time fighting for life drowned by those of ten years lived with death.

Ares locked eyes with his greatest student, his priestess, general, lover. "Only a killer can win here today."

Xena urged Argo forward slowly, turning her face towards Theodorus.

The General looked calm against her pent-up fury. He could see Ares' tactic, how his words unbalanced her, giving his commander the advantage, allowing Theodorus' bodyguards time to ready their weapons. Still, Theodorus offered her one last carrot. "We don't have to do this, Xena. You could abandon your false friends and join me."

"There can't be two generals, Theodorus," Xena said quietly.

"You're right, I guess. Pity," he smiled, and raising a gesture, his circle began to surge forward towards the Warrior Princess — then stopped in their tracks, as though slamming into an invisible wall.

Confused, he looked to the God of War. The smile faded from Theodorus' face as he saw Ares'.

"I hate to play favorites, Theodorus," Ares shrugged, "but I am. And she's it."

The general's face paled, and gripping his sword tightly, he turned to defend himself against Xena unleashed.

* * *

Gabrielle was bruised badly and favoring her left leg as she fought. Caught in a stampede as the lightning bolts rained down from the heavens, she was even now struggling to maintain her position, isolated though she was.

She was starting to feel, deep in her heart, that her happy dream just two nights old would never come to pass. She would die here on this battlefield, victim to the hatred and madness of people she had never met, and would never know.

As if in punctuation, a hideous battle cry spun her around to see one more blood-covered hellion bearing down on her. He wielded a large axe, its shaft as long as her own staff. His right ear was missing.

Gabrielle stood her ground. His blow came while he still had some distance on her, and she caught his shaft crossways. Pulling her staff towards herself, it slid under the head of his axe and nearly ripped the handle from his hands. As he was drawn in, slightly off-balance, Gabrielle kicked him hard in the groin.

Had she been able to plant firmly, the blow would have taken him down. Instead she faltered a little on her injured leg and missed her target slightly. Worse, he noticed the injury. The warrior thrust his axe away and it slid over her shoulder, the blade almost slicing flesh. He spun around her and grabbed the handle, then whirled the weapon around, the shaft striking the back of Gabrielle's knee. The leg buckled.

Flat on her back, the bard had no time to roll out of the axe's path as it arced downward. She pulled her staff up before her face, arms extended, but knew somehow the blade would cleave it first and then her skull. But as she braced her arms for the impact, hoping to slow the strike, Gabrielle saw something instead that she hoped never to again:

A set of flaming hooves passed twelve inches above her nose, then Callisto, reaching out as she rode by, drove two fingers clawlike through the soft flesh beneath her attacker's chin, gripped his jaw from the inside, and ripped his head raggedly from his shoulders. The body, still swinging the axe, was pulled backwards with it still clutched in his dead hands.

Gabrielle was on her knees by the time the goddess had wheeled back around and discarded the body, sloughing away the blood from her hand. Still moving, Callisto drew Gabrielle up into the saddle before her as she rode, one arm around the bard's waist, and her chin almost resting on the younger woman's shoulder.

"This is getting to be a habit," Callisto said.

"One I don't mind in the slightest," Gabrielle smiled tiredly, eyes closed, resting just a moment, allowing the tingle of Callisto's touch to recharge her. As the wind rushed across her face, signaling they were climbing, the bard turned her head to survey the carnage below. It was a nightmare landscape of smoke, crimson, and broken bodies that little resembled the maps she had seen last night.

"Where's Xena?" Gabrielle spoke into the ear near her lips.

A sad, pained look overtook the warrior queen's face, and she slowly gestured with her head.

The bard puzzled through the scene she saw below them. A host of warriors formed a circle around three others, Xena among them. The Warrior Princess was fighting another warrior, who, Gabrielle could make out as she squinted, was Theodorus himself. They had abandoned their horses, which milled idly nearby.

"We should help her," Gabrielle said, agitated. "She's surrounded!"

Callisto shook her head. "She has all the help she needs. See there beside her?"

Gabrielle looked more closely at the third person in the ring. Tall, broad, wavy black hair, watching closely, arms folded across his chest. A chill went through her.

"Ares?"

The goddess nodded sadly.

The bard kept watching. Xena wasn't just fighting Theodorus, she was half-killing him, while his men didn't even come in to help. Or couldn't. 

But there was more. Theodorus was hardly able to defend himself anymore, yet Xena kept attacking. A second, more profound chill touched her spine at the wanton cruelty of her friend. "I don't understand, Callisto," she half whispered, realizing as she spoke that she didn't want to.

Callisto's voice was heavy. "She's full of Ares' bloodlust now, Gabrielle. We can't help her."

Gabrielle's jaw trembled. "No... Xena..."

Almost as though he heard her, Ares raised his head and seemed to meet her eyes even from so far below. The bard shrank back further against her protector.

She tore her eyes away. They were heading towards the hillside from where Gabrielle had first seen Cirra, another lifetime ago. There were no soldiers of either side there now.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked.

Callisto sighed, and pulled her even closer. "I made a promise to her, and right now that means taking you out of harm's way."

They touched down effortlessly, and Callisto swung them both to the ground.

"Now you stay here, okay?" Callisto turned her head to look down at the fiery ruins. "I have to go finish something."

Her heart torn, it took a moment to place the goddess' meaning, and she'd almost made it back to Whirlwind before Gabrielle caught her. "Callisto, don't..."

Callisto turned her pale eyes to meet the bard's.

"You mustn't kill her. Don't give in to the hate. Let the gods take care of her."

"Like they've taken care of her so far?" Callisto said bitterly, and turned away again.

Gabrielle grabbed Callisto's arm tightly once more, turning her back. "Callisto," she pleaded, her voice shaking, her dream slipping farther and farther away. "Please... I can't— I can't lose..."

Callisto's face softened. She held the bard close. "Both of us?" she finished.

"Isn't there something we can do?" Gabrielle whispered.

"Do you trust me?" the warrior queen whispered.

Gabrielle pulled back, moist eyes meeting Callisto's. "Yes."

Callisto touched her cheek tenderly. "Then trust this: we're going to make it through this, okay? I promise."

She seemed to want to say more, the bard thought briefly, but was unable, or unwilling. Gabrielle could only watch helplessly as the goddess mounted up and, with a last, sad look, urged her horse over the hillside and into the air, heading for the death below.

* * *

Xena felt almost giddy, lightheaded from the battle and the fury she had unshackled from within against the bleeding man before her. All around were the screams of his men, struggling against Ares' magic.

Their cries were almost deafening, but still somehow the God of War's voice slipped through them like a snake with his endless monologue of seduction.

"Yes, Xena. That's right, he's helpless now, just kill him. You and I will be a pair forever."

Xena massaged her knuckles, cut and bleeding. She'd sheathed her weapon long ago, no longer needing it. Theodorus was a powerful man, and agile as well, but as Callisto had said, he was no match for her.

"Think of it," Ares intoned, "You leading this army through the gates into Athens. Who can send a more powerful force against you? Sparta? Troy? You'll have ruined Corinth right here."

Xena had pummeled Theodorus with her fists after she'd disarmed him. When he'd fallen she'd kicked him. It had felt good.

"Nothing is left for you here, Xena. You have no real friends but me anyway. Where is Hercules, or Iolaus? Where is Gabrielle? And where is the one who dragged you into this in the first place?"

She felt that line inside of herself, the one she could not cross in this place, in this plan, slowly dissolving in his words. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw the God of War look up.

"Oh, there Callisto is now," he said, and she had to follow his gaze, to where a black horse and two riders were sailing across the sky. "See, she knows you, Xena. She knows what you are: a ruthless warrior-general, who shouldn't be traveling around corrupting an innocent young girl like you have."

Her own voice echoed in her head. She heard her words to Callisto last night. "No... not my Gabrielle..." Xena whispered, to no one who cared.

Her face hardened, her eyes went a little wild.

"She's not yours anymore, Xena," Ares stepped closer. "After all this time you've come back to what you truly want, what you truly are." He was upon her now, his words almost in her ear. "And you have our friend Theodorus to thank for that."

Xena felt her control give way and she drew her blade. Memories flooded her, from some non-existent life — of Callisto riding away in Delphi, Gabrielle slung over her horse; of Gabrielle suspended high above the ground, Callisto's army all around; of Callisto's sword high over Gabrielle's heart, ready to plunge — and there, before her, was a brutal symbol of all the hate Xena felt, in the bruised body of the warrior queen's old lieutenant, risen to his knees and swaying, like some supplicant. Like a sacrifice.

Xena stalked forward and, wrenching back his slumping head by a fistful of hair, thrust her sword home into his broad, scarred chest. Theodorus' eyes went wide, then empty; he convulsed, and blood sprayed from his lips to wet her face. Startled, Xena loosed his hair, and he fell backwards, lifeless.

Something gripped her heart as she stared down at the motionless man, a puppet whose strings were now limp. The insane rage passed, and some spark, struck days before, lit a flame inside her.

Xena looked hard into Ares' eyes, emotions playing across her usually well-controlled face. "I want to address the generals," she said at last.

Ares nodded. "Of course."

"Now, Ares!" she snapped.

He smiled broadly and lifted his hand, and suddenly a handful of warlords appeared before the Warrior Princess, the ones still alive, each looking bloodied and confused, pulled from amidst their different parts of the battlefield.

Galteus was the first to react to the scene before him, and he tried to step towards Theodorus' crumpled form. But like the warriors all around, he too was held by Ares' power.

"Let them go," Xena instructed, and Ares did so. A few of the footsoldiers fell to the ground, having still been struggling against the magic. Xena held out the point of her sword, addressing each of the warlords in turn.

"Each of you has led your troops well today," she said, "or you wouldn't be standing here before me now. But," she reached down, picking Theodorus up by the hair, "you didn't have a real leader. I won't try to convince you — what you've seen here today is all I need to say."

She met Ares' eyes and hers now held a sparkle. "How would you like to have a real general lead you into Athens?"

At their confused and hopeful murmuring she lifted her voice higher. "Because if you follow me, that's exactly what I'll do! I'll lead you into Athens, generals..."

Her eyes scanned the perimeter until she spotted just what she'd known would be there, before she continued. "Through the gates of Athens," Xena called, "and straight into her dungeons! Hercules, _now_!"

The two bearskinned warriors threw off their cloaks to reveal the faces of the demi-god and his long time friend. Xena dropped the dead general and leapt at Flaavus, knocking him to the ground.

Before Ares could react to the betrayal, his half-brother had lifted the giant Galteus into the air and tossed him at the god, knocking him off his feet and to his backside. The three warriors made short work of the remaining generals and Hercules took to sending the members of Theodorus' guard skyward.

Ares struggled to sit up and found Xena's face right in his own.

"You'll _never_ get me again, Ares," she said quietly and calmly. "I'm free, and there is nothing you can hold over me or my friends ever again. Zeus will see to that."

She turned and walked away, not looking back.

Behind her, Ares climbed to his feet slowly. His face went white with rage as he realized the depth of this deception, and his voice, when it came, shook the sides of the valley.

"Callisto," he bellowed, "you little _bitch_!"

* * *

She felt a rumble, like thunder, as she touched down amidst the flames. Across the town square from her, Velasca was clawing weakly at the earth around her body.

It was as Callisto crossed the distance between them, mind lost in deciding how to bring her life's quest to an end, that the first blow came. Amidst the crackling and breathing of the flames, she didn't hear his swift approach, so as he slammed into her like some horizontal meteor, Callisto never had time to brace herself. Which was just as he wanted it.

What he'd done before was just for show, and now, with this real anger, came crushing hits like she'd never imagined. A fighter whose greatest skill was avoiding strikes, Callisto had no way to prepare for his onslaught. He pummeled and punched. She tumbled and sprang back but he caught her midair and drove her back-first to the ground.

Callisto rolled as he stomped a great boot down and he missed. Pulling out her sword and rolling to a crouch, she aimed a perfect swing at his belly, but her sword rang on his as he drew and the shock numbed her hand. He twisted his wrist and her weapon flew away.

Ares swung a vicious blow and she drew back a half inch from the arc of its point, falling back on her hands. He stepped in and kicked her in the ribs, and she slid, rolling, along the ground for fifty yards. Callisto felt something poking her stomach as she struggled for breath lying face down. Distractedly she glanced down to see the small crossbow, still at her waist, pinned beneath her.

She tried climbing to her feet, but felt her head dragged back as Ares grabbed her by the hair and lifted. A huge fist connected with her chin and Callisto flew backwards along the ground again, sliding, sliding, until her head connected with something hard and flat and she stopped. Cracking her eyes, squinting against the sun, she could see stone-carved writing above her, and she gave a short laugh that ended in a painful choke. How fitting that he'd kill her here, in the graveyard she'd dug with her own hands.

Something big blocked the light, and Callisto saw Ares' angry face through blurry eyes.

"Congratulations," he spat, "that was quite a ruse."

"Thanks," she coughed.

"Too bad you won't see the results."

Callisto licked lips that were suddenly dry. "I don't have to. Just imagining you in Hephaestus' chains is enough for me."

Ares almost laughed, but lifted his sword high instead. "Well, wherever dead gods go, Callisto, be sure to write."

Then the sword, slashing downward for a powerful last blow, came to an abrupt halt and Ares almost lost his grip at the crushing pain on his wrist. Head jerking sideways, he looked into the blue eyes of his half-brother with a frown.

"Not so fast, brother," Hercules said calmly. "That's my daughter, you see," he shared a brief, tired smile with Callisto that spoke of the greatest love, before locking Ares' gaze once more, "and I'm very protective of my family."


	17. Rest for the Wicked

XVII: Rest for the Wicked 

There was fire everywhere. It began within her, and then was without her, and at the last, within her again.

Callisto was hurt. Even lacking the final strike, Ares' blows had taken a great toll. It was all she could do to remain conscious. And it was through half-open eyes that she watched her father defend her life as she lay on her mother's grave.

"Stay out of this, Hercules," the God of War spoke with venom, trying to pull his arm from his brother's grip. "This doesn't concern you."

"Oh?" Hercules held fast. "And how do you figure that, Ares?"

"Callisto isn't your blood."

The demi-god pointed to where Velasca still struggled. "And that troll you've been hanging around with is yours?"

Ares wrenched free his wrist. "I'm defending my honor!" 

"And she's defending the world from it!" Hercules pushed between the God of War and his target.

Ares flexed his fingers around his sword's grip. "Step aside, brother, or I swear to Zeus I'll kill you as well."

There was a roaring in Callisto's ears, a sound that she couldn't quite place. It sounded like flames, she thought first, but no, that wasn't quite it. Pushing aside the pain she felt in her belly and her back, her chin and her chest, she struggled to focus on that sound.

It was more of a ringing, she decided, actually. Yes, as she trained her attention the dull growl fell away to reveal a single, continuous note that went on, very loudly, from some spot not beyond her ears but between them, a place that could not be quite pinned down but flitted away from her searching mind, again and again, scampering just beyond her attempts to place it, yet all the while droning on and on, wailing, stinging her eardrums without touching them, an endless siren that became a stabbing pain in her skull, no, not became, but stemmed from, the horrible, scathing, flaming rage of agony that pressed against her temples, burning, burning away all other feelings until she could hear nothing else but the sound, taste nothing but the blood on her tongue as she bit it, smell nothing but the smoke that surely came from her own blazing body and then she knew, somehow, some way, that she was dying.

In the mix of sun and shadows across her face, darkness took hold, and Callisto forced open her eyes, fearful. But death was not in that dark. Instead she saw only the broad, muscled back of the man who'd saved her life, before, and now.

"Papa..." she said weakly. "Papa help me..."

Hercules heard the words, and a chill crawled up his spine with them. His face became even darker as he stared down the God of War. "Then you'll have to, Ares. You'll have to kill me, because you're not getting past unless you do."

* * *

Elaria was the hardest to take down. True to her nature, she attacked and then retreated to cover, in this case, the cover of the countless small skirmishes the battle was winding down to. Run almost to his limit by the rest of the day's efforts, Iolaus found the chase almost more than he could take.

With several of the most trusted Corinthians watching the other captured generals, Xena and Iolaus wound through the ebbing fight in pursuit of the mountain woman. With Theodorus' army truly headless, the Warrior Princess' towering presence on Argo, chasing down the guerrilla warlord with Iolaus, lifted her warriors' spirits back to the levels they'd been early in the day. The bandits were not only being routed again but, as news of Theodorus' death and the capture of the generals spread, they were beginning to surrender.

"Can you see her?" Iolaus looked up at Xena.

She scanned the battlefield nearby. "There! She's trying to make it to the hillside with some cavalry. Iolaus, head straight for that copse of trees and double back to the southeast. I'll head directly that way. She can see me up here, but not you."

Iolaus shrugged. "One advantage of my height." Sighing heavily, he took to a sprint.

Xena urged Argo to a trot, eyes on Elaria, who saw her soon enough. Having been skulking away between the riders, the guerrilla leader abandoned that strategy and pulled a horseman off his saddle violently, then swung up in his place and bolted.

The treeline was three hundred yards away and up the slope. With a leap over a pile of bodies and a swing around some startled infantrymen, Xena drove Argo at an angle south, heading to cut the general off.

Elaria was not so courteous. With a group of soldiers in her way she merely rode right through them, scattering the lucky ones and trampling an unlucky soul, who had been, while living, her own follower. The effort slowed her, though, letting Xena gain, and she had to turn back to the north again.

The Warrior Princess changed direction as well, still trying to force Elaria in Iolaus' direction. The general would not cooperate. The forest and safety coming ever closer, but Xena gaining faster still, she cut back and forth, intentionally scattering bands of soldiers directly into Xena's path. Xena came close to knocking more than one Corinthian's head off as Argo whirled and bounded.

The general looked backwards and forwards, judging distances and speeds. She decided to make a break for it, and whipped her horse savagely. Xena could not keep pace.

Just as Elaria slowed on the hill to pick a spot to enter her beloved forest, a rattle from a tree above and half behind her became a flying body that took the big woman from the saddle and shoulder-first into the ground. She rolled firmly and kicked out, and knocked her attacker off, but only as far as her feet. Iolaus latched onto her ankle and twisted, and they both lost footing and began to slide down the steep slope.

The two tumbled for fifteen yards in a heap, Elaria scratching and clawing the entire way. Iolaus lost his grip and slid away.

"_Oh_, I have better things to be doing than wrestling with _you_!" he growled.

The general rolled to her hands and knees and started to scramble back towards the trees. Iolaus leapt after, not quite reaching, then ducked at a sharp crack of sound. He looked up in time to see Xena's whip entangle the general's legs, dragging her to a halt.

"Iolaus, go on. Go to her," Xena said to him.

The blond warrior looked down the hill at the ruins below, the anxiety written on his face. "You sure?"

Xena half-smiled. "Go."

He didn't need more encouragement than that.

* * *

Ares considered the challenge an invitation, and with the speed of a cobra launched his attack. The point of his sword drove Hercules back on his heels, and Ares pressed in, fist lashing out to push the demi-god right over. But Hercules ducked sideways around the second blow and, grabbing Ares' arm as leverage, spun the God of War around with a hard shoulder-to-shoulder hit of his own.

With Ares' back to Callisto, Hercules started to fall backwards with the arm still in his grip. He leapt up, planting both feet in Ares' stomach, and launched the God of War back over his head and into Cirra's center. The ground shook as Ares' impacted, and his sword skittered away.

Hercules rolled and ran straight at his half-brother, knocking him to the ground again just as he regained his feet. But Ares rolled to his hands and knees as Hercules slid past, then jumped and locked arms around the demi-god's waist from behind. Hercules grabbed Ares' head over his shoulder and yanked, dragging the God of War painfully over and onto his back again.

Hercules struck down with a hammer-like hand at Ares' head, but it struck only earth as the god rolled out of the way and headed for his sword. His brother caught him by an ankle first, and dragged him backwards. Ares rolled to his back again and planted the heel of his other boot hard in Hercules' face twice.

Reeling, Hercules got to his feet as Ares retrieved his sword and leapt with it. Ducking sideways just in time, he was only grazed on one arm. Ares turned and Hercules turned with him. The God of War feinted low with the sword, making Hercules commit to a counter, then spun away backwards and struck down from the other side, catching his brother painfully on the other arm. Hercules grabbed Ares' arm and kicked the sword out of his hand. The blade sailed end over end across the town square, and embedded itself point down in the earth two feet from Velasca's nose where she was trapped, half-buried, in the ground.

The demi-god completed his move with a right cross to Ares' jaw that nearly knocked him down, then a left hook that stood the God of War back upright again. Ares struck back with two quick jabs to the face, then a spinning roundhouse kick to the side of his head.

Hercules stumbled, then straightened and barreled forwards. Ares was ready though, and turning half away, locked his arms around his brother's waist and lifted, spinning him in the air lengthwise before slamming him back first into the ground.

The crash and rumble of the brothers' battle brought Velasca back to her senses. It also loosened her prison. Reaching out to grip the sword's blade just before her, and gritting her teeth as its edges bit into her flesh, the God of Chaos began to pull herself free.

Ares climbed to his feet while Hercules tried to catch his wind. There was a fatigue in the God of War's eyes that his brother could see. Waiting until Ares began his next attack, a heavy punch aimed down at Hercules' chest, Hercules rolled away just enough for Ares to miss, then rolled back again, trapping Ares' hand, then arm beneath his body. Ares was jerked down, and Hercules assisted with an elbow to the back of his head. Hercules jumped to his feet and planted a kick to Ares' ribs that sent him tumbling.

The God of War halted himself, then stood, fists ready, eyes narrowed. Hercules stood his ground.

"You're weakening, Ares. As the battle breaks up, you're losing your strength."

"Maybe," Ares snarled back. "But it won't happen fast enough to save you."

* * *

Gabrielle wasn't sure of what to make of the sight of Xena leading a struggling, bound, bearskin-clad woman down the hillside a short ways off. She knew the woman wasn't one of their own, but on whose behalf had Xena captured the warrior, Callisto's, or Ares'? So it was that the bard tensed, and set her staff ready, when the Warrior Princess caught sight of her, handed off the prisoner to another soldier, and began riding her way.

"Gabrielle," Xena began, swinging down from her horse, and approaching. "I'm glad you're all right." She stepped closer. 

"Callisto made sure of it," the bard stated warily, backing away, a thread of anger in her voice. "She saved my life."

Xena seemed undisturbed by this, for the first time in days. She merely nodded.

"That was quite a show you put on down there with Theodorus," Gabrielle pressed. "Ares was certainly taking it well."

"He was supposed to. That was the trick."

"What trick?" Gabrielle's brow furrowed.

Xena looked down towards the ruins. "Callisto's plan. She had to get Ares to separate himself from Velasca. That way Callisto could neutralize her. Otherwise we had no chance here today."

Gabrielle was still confused. "And how did she manage that?"

The Warrior Princess held open her hands. "She offered him me, in exchange."

"What?!"

"Callisto convinced Ares that I was turning back to evil, that what the Fates did was changing me back."

The bard almost couldn't speak. "So all this time, all those arguments, the way you acted—"

Xena stepped closer to her, touching her arm. "Part of that was real. There _is_ a part of me that is different here, Gabrielle, that I'm going to have to get used to. But mostly I was acting the way she and I decided I should."

Gabrielle shook her head. "But why didn't she tell me?" She sighed, looking down. "You didn't trust me."

"No, that's not it. I _did_ trust you, Gabrielle. But Callisto couldn't tell you. If you didn't believe it, Ares wouldn't either. He would see it in you." She touched a hand to Gabrielle's chin, raising her eyes to meet her own. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. I hated lying to you that way. It was the worst part, especially with how difficult things have been between us lately. But I trusted that you would feel the darkness in me with all your heart, and that's what Ares had to see."

Gabrielle slipped into Xena's arms and held her close, the agony of recent days pouring out in the fierce embrace. Xena kissed her hair gently.

But the bard couldn't let it all go yet. It wasn't over. "Xena, I'm afraid for Callisto."

There was no tensing in Xena's hug, as Gabrielle feared. The Warrior Princess simply listened. "Yes?"

"I'm afraid she'll kill Velasca. She was going after her when she left me here."

Xena pushed back to see her face.

"I'm afraid what the gods will do if Callisto kills her," Gabrielle finished.

Xena frowned a little, something niggling in her head, some dangerous little detail just beyond her reach. "Ares went after her. To stop her. And Hercules followed."

Gabrielle looked only half relieved. "Well she couldn't kill Ares."

And then it struck her. Xena's eyes went wide. "Yes she could."

The bard matched her friend's look. "What?"

Xena grabbed Gabrielle's arm and practically dragged her to Argo. "Come on," she said, her voice very tight, "we have to hurry."

* * *

She fought hard to open her eyes, and when she did, they met a sight it seemed she'd seen her whole life.

Like moments in the green fields behind Mama's home, that hill in the corner of her vision, the grass all around her. Only with soot black clouds, not fluffy white.

Like the night an army attacked her town, all the buildings around in flames, the sounds of cruelty and death in her ears. Only daytime, not night.

Like all the days in Tartarus, distant screams of agony and the torture of the searing heat. Only she was alive, not dead.

Alive, yes, she was alive, though barely. This was a familiar place she lay in, but a different time. And lifting her head, she saw she was not alone. Her father — her father! — was fighting the God of War, so long her master, and nearby, her demon, the source of all her nightmares, was clawing her way out of the earth with, dear gods, Ares' sword.

Hercules dodged in, landing two quick punches to Ares' jaw before the God of War grabbed his arm, dragged him forward and tripped him smoothly. The demi-god rolled to avoid the incoming kick and sprang up again, but couldn't step away from Ares' diving ankle-tackle.

He spun and kicked back, but missed Ares who scampered back to his feet. Hercules somersaulted back upright and threw another hard punch. When the demi-god stepped in, Ares threw his feet upwards and locked a cinch around his brother's neck, then twisted him right off his feet and face first into the ground. Scooting behind him, Ares locked an arm around Hercules' throat and stood them both up, lifting Hercules off his feet entirely, strangling.

Callisto struggled to sit up. But as she tried planting her palms on unsteady arms, she heard someone approaching, and like magic, a handsome and familiar face appeared before her. Strong hands gripped her arms.

"Callisto?" he said. 

"Iolaus!" she sighed, relieved. "Help me up, I have to help father."

The blond warrior held her fast, looking her over. "Callisto you're hurt."

"It doesn't matter. I have to stop—"

She didn't need to finish the sentence, as her point was made by the brilliant display of lightning shooting skyward as Velasca pulled herself to her feet and raised her hands in triumph. Iolaus threw himself over Callisto as the bolts flickered down at random, splitting trees and digging great holes in the ground.

One bolt nearly hit Xena and Gabrielle as Argo led them over the hillside and down towards the new battlefield. Xena wheeled the horse skillfully and kept riding hard.

"If you were trying to _kill_ me, Callisto, you _failed_!" the God of Chaos boomed. Hands dripping something akin to blood, she reached down and gripped Ares' sword. "And if the God of War won't keep me by his side," she yanked the weapon free, "then I will become one instead!"

There was a shimmer of energy as she held it aloft, and suddenly Ares dropped Hercules to the ground, unable to hold him. The demi-god easily broke the choke-hold and reversed it, but knew instantly it wasn't necessary. Ares was a god no more.

"Iolaus get off me," Callisto whispered, and began to claw at her belt.

Velasca sneered at the struggling brothers before her. "You can't use him as a shield now, Hercules. I can get to you through him or around, it makes no difference. Through might be even more fun. I don't like betrayal, you see."

Xena and Gabrielle rode closer, but slowed. The bard tried to catch Callisto's eyes, but they were wild and locked on Velasca.

"Ah, another good target," Velasca laughed. She spread her hands. "Look at this wonderful gathering. Three targets, each trying to hide, and none that can. Which shall I take care of first?"

She pointed the great sword towards Gabrielle. "There, behind my old rival, is the woman who stole my kingdom! Should I kill her first?"

Callisto's voice shook. "Iolaus, get off me!" she hissed, yanking open the pouch at her belt.

The Amazon fixed her gaze on the Vengeance Immortal. "There, behind the only innocent here, is the one who tried to kill me," her voice boomed. "The one whose home I burned to the ground! The one whose family I heard screaming in the night!" She shook her head. "No, my dear, you I definitely save for last."

Then she turned her burning gaze on the two brothers, and her back to Callisto. "But this one, this one I'll kill first, because I want his shield as much as I want him." Velasca stalked forward, tendrils of energy flowing around her like will o' the wisp. "With one blow, one cast of this sword," she hefted the blade, "I'll kill the man who betrayed me today," her eyes touched Ares, then turned on Hercules, "and then the hero I should have killed four years ago when I _butchered his family_!" Her voice echoed across the valley.

Callisto squirmed out from under Iolaus, her body weak but her pain driving her. Crawling to the edge of the town square she almost shrieked in agony.

Hercules blanched.

"Oh yes," Velasca smiled at his sudden pallor. "I had a moment of weakness, you see," she slowly moved forward, towards them, "when my devotion to our dear former God of War slipped, just a bit, and I entered the service of the Queen of the Gods. She had only one assignment... and four names..." Velasca spun gently like a ballerina in slow motion. "Deianeira... Clonus... Aeson... and Ilea."

Each name stabbed deeper into two hearts. The owner of one felt everything in her life click suddenly into place. Everything in her past come neatly to this moment.

By now Velasca stood directly in front of the half-brothers. She frowned briefly. "Oh, yes, there was a fifth, actually. Hera wasn't happy when I missed her, so I came back to you," she grabbed Ares' chin playfully, and he turned his head roughly away. She pointed the sword behind her blindly, looking in Hercules' eyes. "But I'll get her today. Do you think Hera will take me back?"

"One thing's for sure," Hercules forced through tight lips. "You and Hera make a nice couple."

Ares looked over his shoulder, a twisted grin on his face. "But a couple of what?"

"_SILENCE_!!" Velasca bellowed, and struck Ares with a backhand that tore him from Hercules' grip and rolled him halfway across the ruins. Velasca smiled bitterly at the lone son of Zeus still standing, and sparks flickered along the blade of her sword. "Look what you've ruined. Now I'll have to kill you one at a time."

"You won't kill anyone else, Velasca," Callisto said in a voice only she could hear, and raised her small crossbow. "You'll never kill anyone again."

Velasca drew back her blade like a scorpion's tail.

Gabrielle lifted her hand in horror and drew a great breath.

Iolaus turned slowly to watch the wounded woman before him.

Xena wheeled Argo hard and tensed up to spring. 

Ares turned his face away from the coming blow.

Hercules saw not the visage of death before him, but the one across the ruins beyond her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Angel..." Callisto whispered.

"Callisto?" Iolaus asked.

"Callisto, _no_!" Gabrielle called out, but too late.

Xena leapt into Callisto's sight line, but the goddess, seeing every motion in some grand ballet, waited just long enough that the Warrior Princess had nothing to stop.

The blood-tipped bolt sailed true in a moment that stretched almost to eternity, eyes wide all about, before embedding itself in Velasca's back. Ares' sword fell from her nerveless fingers and, her knees buckling under her, she clutched helplessly at Hercules' as she collapsed to the ground.

Xena rolled to the earth heavily.

Hercules knelt down and pulled out the arrow gently, rolling Velasca over to see her empty, sightless eyes. He could see the darker brown flecks beneath the gore from Velasca's body. "Blood of the Hind?" he whispered, incredulous.

Ares' head whipped back and his reaction was instantaneous. He leapt for his sword.

Gabrielle dropped off Argo and ran towards Callisto.

Iolaus turned and scrambled that way also.

Callisto calmly reloaded.

Ares, sword back in hand, stood while shimmering light whirled around him.

The Vengeance Immortal put him directly in her sights.

"I'd stop her, brother," Ares said to Hercules. "But don't get in her way. Those things are dangerous."

"Callisto, don't," Iolaus said, one hand reaching out slowly towards the bow, the other towards the woman he cared for most in the world. "He's not worth it."

Her voice shook. "You don't know how worth it he is, Iolaus. This was my dream, and he's destroyed it."

"If you pull that trigger, Callisto," Gabrielle said gently, "you'll be the one to destroy it." The bard came closer. Before her, Hercules and Xena did as well. "Look around you. _This_ is your dream. You wanted a family."

Callisto turned moist eyes to meet hers.

The bard smiled. "Here we are."

Callisto's hand began to shake.

"End the cycle here," the wise young woman said. "Don't let Velasca win."

The goddess turned her head slowly, from face to face. They were blurring in her eyes. Blinking away the wetness, she put the bow in Iolaus' outstretched hand.

Ares sheathed his sword, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Callisto blinked again, but the blur didn't go away. She sank back to the ground. Iolaus was beside her in an instant.

"Herc, she's really hurt," he called back to her father.

Xena came closer, kneeling down. She poked and prodded. "She's dying."

Hercules crowded close, frowning. He took Callisto's hand. "That's impossible, she's a god."

From behind them came Ares' voice. "Only by ambrosia. A surprisingly fragile enhancement."

Hercules slipped his arm beneath his foster-daughter. She turned eyes towards him, but could not see him.

"Xena, do something," Gabrielle begged, her voice tight.

The Warrior Princess shook her head. "There's nothing I can do. I can't fix this."

Still Callisto's eyes searched. "Papa?"

Hercules grabbed Xena's arm. "Please, there must be something?"

She met his eyes, but held no hope in hers.

Iolaus sat back on his heels, covered his mouth with his hand.

Silence, for long moments.

"There is a way for her to live," Ares said.

Hercules locked his brother's gaze. "What's that?"

Ares almost shrugged. "Unwish it."

The demi-god frowned. "Unwish what?"

Xena turned an angry look on her old master. "Oh, very convenient for you, Ares. You won't be punished."

"I... can't," Callisto said, her voice weak.

"Forget Ares," Hercules told Xena. "Callisto," he coaxed, "if it will keep you alive, you must do it."

"Please, Callisto," Iolaus added, touching her cheek.

Callisto shook her head softly. "Can't I die with a family?"

Xena cleared her throat. "I'd rather you didn't die at all," she said. Gabrielle met her eyes, and they shared a look that said many things, good and bad, worries and hopes.

The Vengeance Immortal closed her eyes, hearing that voice that somehow, even now, meant more than all the others.

"Bring the Fates, Ares," she said.

It took only a gesture, and then they stood before the group, their thread stretched between them.

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos laid their gaze upon the warrior queen, who could not return it. "Callisto Avenger—"

"—sponsored by Ares—"

"—God of War—"

"—name your wish. If it's ours to bestow—"

"—it's yours."

Callisto reached out to take Hercules' and Iolaus' hands in her own. 

"Mother, maiden, and crone, this is my wish," she whispered. "Let the past have happened as before."

The Fates looked as one to Ares, who nodded brusquely.

The three nodded. "So be it—"

"—all is restored."

* * *

And then day was dusk, and smoke was stars, and the crash of battle was only the chirping of crickets. Argo, nibbling grass nearby, whinnied softly.

There was no flame. The ruins were intact — as they were before, at least.

"Gabrielle?" Xena said.

"Callisto?" Gabrielle called.

"Artemis?" came Callisto's voice, clear and strong. The others turned their heads to watch a flicker of light dance closer and closer, until a slender figure within stood before them. The three began to rise.

"Why are you here, Artemis?" Callisto asked, her eyes still pale blue but clear and seeing in the fading daylight.

The other goddess' voice was soft. "For your punishment."

"What?" Xena frowned.

"I asked you to kill another god," Artemis spoke to Callisto, "and for that I was punished. When the Fates changed time, my punishment was that Velasca would be reborn. But you killed her, you see, and for that you must be punished as well."

Gabrielle stepped forward. "That's not fair! You asked her to kill Velasca! Why must she be punished at all?"

The Moon Goddess turned to the bard. "To restore time, Velasca had to be eliminated. That is why the gods allowed me to give Callisto back her godhood, to stop her. Velasca could not be trusted in either timeline. But gods cannot be allowed to kill other gods."

"And what is the punishment?" Xena asked.

Artemis reached out a hand calmly and a bolt of lightning brought Callisto to her knees. A bright glow moved from Callisto to Artemis. After a moment, the light faded.

"It is done," Artemis said, and, like most gods do, vanished.

Gabrielle rushed to Callisto's side. The warrior turned her brown eyes on the bard. "It's not fair..." she said, her voice weak but with a touch of dangerous rage. "Nothing has changed. I've still lost everything."

The bard could see a tumult behind those eyes. She swallowed, fearful.

Behind her, Xena stepped forward. "No, Callisto, that's not true. You've won. You have what you always wanted." She stopped before her old rival. "You're home."

Callisto looked up at Xena, defeated. The fear in Gabrielle vanished, replaced by anger. She turned a dark glare at the Warrior Princess. "Xena, that's cruel."

But Xena shook her head. "No, Gabrielle. I don't mean these ruins here, Callisto." She crouched down beside the blonde warrior. Whatever past there was now, this was something she was very sure about.

Xena touched the warrior queen's arm. "I mean your soul, Callisto. The fates didn't reverse that wish."

Callisto's brow furrowed. There were many things in her heart as she listened to Xena's words. She struggled to keep them straight, and more importantly, to feel them.

"You've taken the first step on a long, hard road. This," Xena indicated the shattered buildings, "may have not changed at all, but _you_ have. In these past few days you've come a long way. You've come a lifetime away."

Callisto's voice was quiet. "But I got here with— so many things. I don't know the way after this."

Xena smiled softly, insecurely. "You'll find it. For a while, Callisto, you were a hero. Even if fate has changed that, you know it's within you. You can be that way again."

The blonde warrior shook her head, afraid — afraid of many things, but foremost of them, the distinct lack of rage in her heart.

"Callisto," the Warrior Princess bent to meet her eyes, "remember what you told Gabrielle before? You said you felt 'whole'. And it wasn't because your family was alive again. It's because _you_ were."

At that, Xena reached over and took Gabrielle's hand, and stood. She knew Callisto would not answer. She did not know if she'd listen, or accept, or change. But she'd said her piece.

They left the warrior queen there as they mounted up on Argo. Gabrielle waited for a moment longer than her friend, but knew at last that they needed to go. It was a ways to Pharsalus.

Callisto looked around after they'd left. She stood and walked through the dewy grass of the old square, eyes scanning the hillside, the close trees and distant ones, the homes, ramshackle but in place. There was so much different here now than in her other life, her sometimes happy one now gone.

But one thing, she saw with wonder, hadn't changed. At the edge of the crumbling buildings, casting long shadows in the grass, were still the stone tombstones Callisto had had made, over the graves that she had dug.

And as the sunlight faded on the horizon and the silver moon took its place to watch over the night, Callisto decided to stay, just a while, among the headstones, and say goodbye.

* * *

~The End~ 


End file.
